


Deadpool Makes A Friend

by InkSplots



Category: Deadpool (Movieverse), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Female Protagonist, Major Original Character(s), POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:28:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24813844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkSplots/pseuds/InkSplots
Summary: The Merc with a Mouth is on a contract when things get a little sticky and he finds a not-quite-as-abandoned-as-he-thought apartment to lay low in. What happens when the owner, a highly-trained bounty hunter, comes home to find our favorite anti-hero there? Rated M because Deadpool does what he wants and I have no control over him. Descriptions of violence and crass language. (Cross-posted from ff.net)
Kudos: 8





	1. Deadpool Makes A Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Professional Disclaimer: I do not own Deadpool. I am making no money from this.
> 
> Personal Disclaimer: I am only a casual Deadpool fan and this story was written about a year before Deadpool 2 came into theaters. Some of Deadpool's actions may be slight OOC.
> 
> Last Note: Deadpool's white mental box is in italics and is referred to as the 'voice' of Doctor Bong. The yellow box is in bold and is referred to as Madcap. Research tells me that these are who the boxes are popularly believed to be, but please let me know if you think otherwise. Deadpool's inner monologue is in bolded italics.

Careful not to burn his fingers yet again, Deadpool – sometimes known as Wade Wilson – lit the old-fashioned pipe with a flaring match. Nothing spoiled the ambiance he was going for like a string of hastily-muffled curse words. This time it worked perfectly, and the tobacco inside the bowl began to burn, giving off a not horrible scent. Deadpool took a deep draw from the stem, gagged twice, threw the pipe away, and clenched the still-smoking match between his teeth instead.

"Now, my dear Watson," he said to the empty air beside him. "What can we deduce from the current state of this apartment?" He didn't give poor, imaginary Dr. Watson a chance to respond before crying, "Wrong! It's the only one without lights on, no one's touched that doorknob in at least two days, there's mail in the mailbox, and it smells worse than my apartment. Conclusion?" Deadpool pulled the match from between his teeth, feeling very much like Wolverine and heartily enjoying it. "It means that the old Regeneratin' Degenerate still doesn't have to pay for a motel room. Let's go!"

Though he had never lost confidence in his powers of deduction, Deadpool still breathed a sigh of relief when the apartment was empty after all. "Go, me! Go, me! Great ass! Go, me!" When the small celebration was complete, Deadpool tipped his head back and sucked a lungful of the foul air through his mask. _**Ah, the scent of victory…**_

 _One would think the true scent of victory would come in the form of a clean, pleasantly-scented hotel room that we have more than enough money to pay for._ Doctor Bong's concise and cultured voice, dripping with as much disdain as always, made Deadpool want to slam his head into a wall until his skull busted wide enough for him to reach in and pull the snobby little voice out. _**Maybe then, I could get rid of him forever…**_

 **The true scent of victory comes from not having to pay for wherever you end up,** Madcap argued, not entirely wrong. Deadpool supposed he should be a little more concerned about agreeing with the predefined 'crazy' voice – especially since he had so much history with the voice's inspiration – but he couldn't bring himself to care. Instead, he distracted himself by rifling through the kitchen.

Engrossed in the task of counting roach carcasses, he completely missed the sound of a key entering the lock. A woman walked in a split second later, humming tunelessly under her breath as she toted a large brown paper bag filled with assorted groceries. Deadpool was so shocked that he barely had time to strike his favorite pose and shout, "Honey! You're home early!" before she saw him.

The woman's hazel eyes widened in shock and Deadpool grinned at the reaction, but his blankly white eyes snapped from excited triumph to dismay when she dropped her grocery bag unceremoniously on the ground and drew a gun in the same smooth motion.

_**That was hot. Or- well, it would have been if she had chosen a different gun. I mean, really, I love me some Sigs, but they're just too boxy for a female. She needs something sleek, something with a small handle to help her grip. Also, maybe a concealed carry purse. Come on, a shoulder holster? So 90s FBI movie.** _

Ever agreeable, Deadpool raised his hands up into the air. "So, how do we want to play this? I mean, technically, I was 'trespassing', but it could turn into something else. Can't help but notice that you haven't taken your eyes off me since you got home." He added a wink for effect, though with all the reaction she gave, he shouldn't have bothered making the effort. Thinking he might have used the wrong approach, he moved to sign a greeting to her, but the motion made her tense and raise the gun even further. "Whoa, whoa," Deadpool said in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "Just trying to make sure you understand me. Do you? Do you maybe read lips? I know it can be tricky with the mask…"

He reached to pull the bottom of the mask so his mouth was exposed, but the woman took a half-step forward with one leg, easing into what looked like a very practiced shooting stance.

"Hands on the counter."

Deadpool almost jumped at the unexpected sound of the woman's clipped, professional voice resonating through the small room, but he heard voices on a regular basis, some of which liked to change it up occasionally. He had long since gotten used to sudden strange voices ordering him to do things, though this time, he complied.

With gloved hands safely pressed flat to the counter, Deadpool smiled at the woman. "You know, most people prefer 'hands in the air'. I prefer it, too. Many more possibilities for song references."

"And many more possibilities for you to grab those katanas of yours?" she asked lightly.

Shocked by the offered comment, Deadpool decided to soften her further by offering a compliment. "Oh, you _are_ good. Most people wouldn't recognize these as katanas."

To his continued surprise, the woman gave a loud snort. "Please. Of course I know they're katanas. I do watch _The Walking Dead_."

' _ **I do watch The Walking Dead,'**_ Deadpool mimicked internally. _**How many freaking times have people called me 'Michonne' lately because of that show?**_

27, a voice answered helpfully.

Deadpool paused, momentarily distracted from his rage. _**Wait, you're a new one. Who are you?**_

I'm your inner OCD! I'm a new development, compelling you to count things that bother you as a form of coping mechanism.

_**Ah. Makes sense, makes sense. But I really don't need another quirk to add to my positively charming collection, so I'm gonna have to turn you down. Thanks anyway! Great sales pitch.** _

I-I'm a personality trait... a mental compulsion. You can't just opt out.

 _ **Yeah, well, I'm a very picky lunatic. Guys?**_ There were sounds of scuffling then, audible only to Deadpool. They stopped with OCD's rapidly-fading screams. _**Okay, back to the problem at hand..**_

The woman was watching him oddly and Deadpool forced a laugh. "Michonne, right. I'm more of a Daryl guy, but either way, great show!" Carefully keeping a casual demeanor, he pressed the advantage of perceived common ground. "Why don't we sit on that couch over there, put the weapons away, and talk? I'd love to get a woman's perspective on the implications of Carol and her character arc."

One eyebrow flicked up, but the woman's voice held no inflection. "Alternately, why don't you tell me what you're doing in this apartment?"

"Gas leak. Wait, that makes no sense. TV repair guy. No uniform. Dropped in by mistake?"

"You broke the lock," the woman contributed dryly.

"Okay, fine. I'm a secret government agent-" It was Deadpool's philosophy to pick a lie and stick to it and would have done so in this case – even with the exasperated look on his host's face – if not for the interruption when she put a bullet into the wall next to his head. _**There are only so many interruptions an actor can deal with while practicing his craft…**_ Out loud, however, he only exclaimed loudly, "What the f-"

"Tell me. Why you're. Here. I missed you on purpose; the next bullet can easily go into your head."

Deadpool considered that threat very carefully. He would heal, sure, but the time and energy it would take… Probably not worth it. Besides, this woman might have some insight into his deduction skills and where he had gone wrong. "'Kay, so it's like this: I'm real into Sherlock Holmes-"

"Sherlock Holmes," she repeated blankly.

"Yeah, like, the detective. Anyway, I've been watching the movies, watching the TV shows – even thought about reading the books, that's how into it I am. Well, I'm on a job right now and needed a place to lie low for a while and thought, 'hey, what would Sherlock do?' So I used my newfound deductive reasoning skills to channel the Stark-looking guy and discover an abandoned apartment, where a crazy lady came in and held me at gunpoint, which brings us up to now. Tah-dah!"

The woman's eyes had taken on an almost-dazed expression toward the end of this highly logical explanation and – while Deadpool was used to this from people – it was a little more frightening coming from someone aiming a gun at him. He would heal from the headshot, yeah, but the bullet would hit his eye, and regenerating an eyeball still hurt like a bitch.

She shook her head. "In any case, this apartment isn't abandoned. It belongs to me."

Deadpool smirked. "Then that blush is for what, your terrible cleaning habits? This whole place is covered in a solid coat of dust, it smells like a rotting rat exploded, and the fridge is emptier than the part of my soul that holds my morals. If this is actually your apartment, I'll eat something nasty. Like that rotting, exploded rat."

"So I work a lot! I haven't been home in a while and, as you can see, I'm working on the grocery problem. And as for the cleanliness, I'm sorry. I'll try to make sure everything is spotless for the next person who breaks in."

"Bullshit, and I don't appreciate the attitude. This isn't your apartment, so why are you here? You know what? Fuck it. I really couldn't care less about your reasoning. If you call the police, I'll turn you in, too. Just put away the piece."

She sputtered. "I might not call the police, but I could still shoot you!"

"And I would heal it." Deadpool indicated himself, carefully including the bright red suit, and gave a casual shrug. "Super."

Deciding he was done being held at gunpoint, Deadpool moved to the couch and sat, trying to ignore the dust explosion this caused. After a tense moment, he listened to the woman holstering her gun before she moved on to gathering the dropped groceries.

_A gentleman would help her, especially if he was the reason she dropped her items in the first place._

_**Yeah, well, I'm no gentleman. Even if I was, she just pointed a gun at my eyeball for the last five minutes. I don't exactly have a case of the warm fuzzies for her after that.**_ There was no response.

When everything was straightened up and put away, the woman walked reluctantly to the couch and attempted to beat the dust out of her chosen cushion, carefully located as far from Deadpool as possible. As she settled onto her claimed section of the sofa, she said softly, "You didn't add an identifying noun."

Deadpool cocked his head to the side, cupping a hand around the ear farther away from her. "I'm sorry. One more time for the non-nerds in the audience?"

She seemed to barely restrain the urge to roll her eyes, but the woman managed. "You just said 'super'. You didn't say whether you're a superhero or a supervillain."

He waved his hand carelessly. "Nuance."

"That's not an answer."

"Technically, there wasn't a question, but I get what you mean. Also, no, you don't get an explanation. I don't answer questions about my backstory for free. Now, if you want to trade stories, I'm all for that. Makes the time pass, anyway. If not, I'm fine with silence."

"Let's say I agree to this. Who talks first?"

"You, of course."

"What do you want to know?"

Interested at her acceptance of his proposal, Deadpool sat up. "Oh, the general stuff. Who you are, what you do, why you're here, cup size…" he trailed off as she shot a glare across the room. He shrugged. "Like I said, just the general stuff."

In a longsuffering voice, the woman began to speak. "My name is Ashton and-"

"Ashton what?" Deadpool interrupted. He required the full truth, after all.

"Ashton none-of-your-business," she returned with a glare.

"Sounds like an inconveniently long name, but you can't help what you get stuck with."

Ashton pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Anyway, I'm a bail bonds agent-"

"Ah, a skip-tracer!" Deadpool cut in knowledgeably. He'd had to race a few skip-tracers in the past and had picked up a bit about them. Ashton seemed confused about this contribution to the conversation and he explained, "I'm familiar with the industry."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, seeming relieved.

**_Wow, look. A dropped guard. How convenient!_ **

Recognizing what she thought was a kindred spirit, Ashton became much more conversationally-inclined. "So, I've been given a couple cases, but mostly small jobs. Stuff you wouldn't get out of bed for, you know?" Deadpool nodded understandingly. This was common enough occurrence in his line of work, after all. Encouraged, she went on. "Well, they finally sent me a good one. What's more, I get first crack at it. This case won't even be sent to another agent for a week, but the trail is completely cold. More than cold, it's disappeared."

When he kept quiet, Ashton made eye contact with him, growing defensive. "It's not like I'm a rookie, either! I might be one of the younger agents, but I'm good at what I do."

"No one's saying you aren't," Deadpool replied soothingly. "There's got to be an explanation for where this guy went. And now, you answered who you are and what you do, but what about the last question?"

Ashton grew visibly red. "If you actually think I'm going to tell a masked stranger what my cup size is-"

Deadpool burst out laughing, having long since forgotten about that. "Tempting as it sounds to try convincing you, I meant 'what are you doing in this apartment?'" He studied her. "Unless you're also trying to lie low or avoid someone…"

"No, nothing like that." Ashton was avoiding his eyes, and Deadpool leaned forward, sensing dirt. In a low voice, she admitted, "Things are really tight now financially. I got kicked out of my last apartment because I couldn't make rent. I've been living in my car, but when I got this case and came here, it was obvious that the guy is gone and not coming back anytime soon. I picked up the spare key from a neighbor and figured I would borrow his place – Just until I can get a couple more skips and afford to get a new lease."

She turned fully toward Deadpool. "I know it's asking a lot, but if you'll agree not to tell anyone, you can stay here as long as you need."

Carefully keeping as stern a face as possible, Deadpool asked, "Are you offering to let me co-squat in a difficult-to-find skip's apartment?"

"Please?" Ashton asked, face earnest. "Tracer to tracer?"

"Oh, I'm not an agent," Deadpool laughed. "And don't worry. I'm really not going to tattle on you to your boss or whatever."

Ashton's relief was strong enough to make her forget the first part of his statement, at least for a moment. Eventually, though, he watched it sink in. "W- wait. You're not an agent? Are you an ex-agent?"

"Nope," he drawled, making sure to pop the 'p'.

She shifted uncomfortably on the couch, stiffening her back and folding hands in her lap – close to the holster with her gun, he noticed. "Okay, new question: who are you, masked, unkillable stranger sitting on my couch?"

"Oh, did I forget to mention it? How terribly rude of me!" Deadpool grinned under his mask. He loved this question, looked forward to the moment of reveal. "I'm a masked super, persistent in the struggle to make the world a better place. I straddle the line between good and evil sometimes, though I always stay true to my own personal set of morals. In short…" he took a deep breath and made intense eye contact with his audience. "I'm Batman."

He could literally watch as Ashton's expression shifted from tense readiness to exasperation and it was a beautiful transformation. Before she could start lecturing him, he laughed. "Nah, just kidding. Despite a startling similarity in confidence level and wealth, I'm actually the very intimidating and creatively-violent Deadpool."

"Well, that answers one question – sort of. What about why you're here?"

"We already went over this, Ashton." She frowned at him and Deadpool heaved a hefty sigh. "Fine. You want the instant replay, we can do that. I'm on a job and needed a quiet place to hide out. Since I'm basically Sherlock Holmes now-"

"You're the worst Sherlock Holmes of all time and no, I wasn't talking about that. Why are you in this city? What went wrong in the job you were doing? And what exactly is it that you do for a living?"

Deadpool yawned. "That sounds like a pretty long list and I'm tired. Catch you after a nap?"

"Humor me," she said, voice dangerously soft.

He lolled his head lazily until he was looking at her again. "I'm here on a mission. I do a job and sometimes, that job gets messy. When that happens, I either make it even messier or I keep quiet for a while. This time, I chose the second option. If I tell you more, you'll be in danger, though whether from my enemies or myself, I can't say for certain." He dropped the dark tone and laid his head against the back of the couch. "Goodnight!"

It seemed to be only a few blissful minutes later when Ashton spoke again, frustration making her voice harsh. "I need to know what your job is."

Deadpool opened his eyes, having been oh-so-rudely pulled from his wonderful dream of eating chimichangas while riding a unicorn. Also, Spiderman was there. Irritably, he said, "Fine. You want to know? You want to be in danger? If it'll get you off my balls, I'll tell you. I'm a mercenary." Ashton stared at him blankly. Relieved at the silence, Deadpool closed his eyes only to immediately open them again as he sent her a sickly sweet smile. "It means I kill people for a living."

She gave an indignant little huff and Deadpool mentally congratulated himself on infuriating her before dropping off to sleep.

* * *

Ashton sat for nearly an hour while the strange man slept on her recently-appropriated couch. _I could leave. I mean, it would suck to go back to living in the car, but wouldn't it be worth it to know no unstoppable costumed mercenary is going to come in to tie up loose ends? I really don't want to die for being a loose end._

Mind made up, Ashton eased to her feet and crept over toward the door. She half-turned, taking one last, longing gaze around the apartment where she had been so close to staying. She was reaching to grab the doorknob when the voice behind her made her jump nearly into the door.

A very groggy Deadpool had sat up and simply advised, "Don't do that."

When she was done feeling as though she was going to keel over, Ashton responded, "Why not? It'll be easier for you to hide with only one person here, especially since the registered renter is a male around your age and height."

"Just don't. Trust me, it's a bad idea to try leaving."

Ashton waited until her voice steadied before speaking again. "Why? I think it's better that I leave now rather than risk finding out any more detrimental information about you."

He laughed. "You're the one who decided you wanted to know everything! And why shouldn't you leave? That right there is why!"

He pointed to the kitchen window and a chill went up Ashton's spine. She approached the glass with caution, holding her breath as she pulled aside the thin fabric of the threadbare curtain. There was nothing in the street and she turned to shoot a look at Deadpool, but he was busy vaulting the back of the couch to stand in front of the door. When he reached it, he leaned against the wood with a solid-sounding _thunk!_

"Really?" she asked dryly. "You used the 'look over there' method? That's pathetic."

He wagged a finger back and forth at her. "Ah, ah, ah. That's a lot of sass for someone that method actually worked on."

Ashton grimaced, but couldn't fight the point. Instead, she folded her arms and glared up at him. "Give me one good reason not to leave."

"Because you don't want to die? Look, we don't know if I was followed here or whether the building is being watched. If you leave, they could decide you'd be a good way to get to me. By staying here, you won't be a target."

After studying him carefully for a moment, Ashton reached for the doorknob again. "I'll risk it."

Deadpool slapped her hand away. "I won't!" She frowned at him. "You leave and next thing I know, I have a line going down the street of people wanting a meet-and-greet with America's favorite superhero!"

She gaped. "If you had told me Captain America was here, I would have agreed to stay a lot sooner!"

"Oh, ha, ha, ha. You're an asshole, you know that?"

"Coming from you, I don't know if that's even an insult. But if I am an asshole, I'm a trustworthy one. I'm not going to go telling everyone where you are."

Deadpool snorted. "Trustworthy? I couldn't even trust you not to skip out on me the moment I fell asleep!"

"A moment- You were asleep for an hour, you colossal douchebag!"

He drew back, offended. "It was only fifty-four minutes, dramatic munchkin, so relax. Either way, you're not leaving this apartment."

The enigmatic man seemed very determined, planted against the door with no sign of movement. Ashton shook her head. If she was going to be trapped in this place with a mercenary, it would at least be while she relaxed on a couch rather than standing around in front of a door. Grudgingly, she made her way back to the sofa, followed by a gleefully-skipping Deadpool.

"How much longer do you think we'll have to stay here?" she asked, trying not to sound sulky.

"Eh, no more than three hours or so."

"Great, so forever." Sulkiness was definitely coming through. "Well, if we're going to be stuck here together for who knows how long, could you maybe lose the mask?"

He looked over at her, radiating bemusement from behind said mask. "That's pretty ballsy. You find out that the unknown man in your stolen apartment kills people for a living and the first thing you do is ask to see his face? Maybe you have a death wish after all."

"Come on, it's not like that! I just think it would be nice to actually see who I'm talking to instead of trying to figure out how you make your eyes look like that."

"No," he refused flatly, all traces of warmth and humor gone from his eyes. She made a noise of frustration but his only response was to shake his head. "I would sooner let you shoot me – maybe even shoot myself – than take off this mask. End of discussion."

"But it's creepy! I can't tell where you're looking with the blank white eyes."

"That's the point, babe," he grinned, adding an exaggerated wink. She rolled her eyes. Just then, something clattered to the floor in the kitchen and both turned. She noticed something and began to smile and Deadpool, noticing, turned forward again uncomfortably.

She sighed. "Well, I guess if you're not going to get more comfortable, I will instead." She moved her hands to the buttons at her chest. Deadpool's head whipped toward her and she flopped back against the couch. "Ha!" she crowed triumphantly. "I've figured you out. When you're looking at something, your left eyebrow flicks in that direction."

He shook his head at her. "One, it's not nice to tease. Two, you can totally redeem yourself by continuing that action."

"I think I'll pass, but at least now, I have a clue on where you're looking."

They sat in a disconcertingly comfortable silence until it was broken by Deadpool. "Thanks for skipping the 'I'm not pretty' dance."

She snorted. "It's less to do with me and more to do with you." He furrowed brows at her and she shrugged. "Attraction is subjective and pretty much everyone has someone who thinks they're attractive. But past that, I'm getting a real pansexual kind of vibe off of you."

"Is that so?" he asked evenly. She couldn't really peg a facial expression behind the mask, but his tone held something close to a wary offense.

"Yeah, you know Doctor Who?" After a moment, he nodded. "Well, I figure you're a Captain Jack Harkness kind of guy. You think everyone's attractive and that makes you attractive to everyone." He seemed stunned, so she added helpfully, "It's a good thing."

"No, I get that. I'm just trying to figure out if I'm more flattered at that comparison or surprised by the accuracy."

"Either way, think you could try to give me a hand with my case?"

"Sure!" he agreed willingly. "Finding a tough skip is all about asking the right questions. I, for one, only have one question about your mark that needs to be answered: Does he have cable?" Ashton glowered at him as he kicked feet up on the coffee table and turned on the television. "Son of a- He doesn't have cable! Who doesn't have cable?! What a moron. He deserved whatever happened to him."

Ashton was just thinking about the merits of dying from Chrysomelid-poisoned arrows shot by the African San tribe when Deadpool turned to her. "Looks like we'll just have to queue up the old Netflix stream. Where's your phone?"

Wordlessly, Ashton dug in her pocket and pulled out the basic burner phone she had picked up to get assignments on. Deadpool snatched it from her hand and stared down at it disbelievingly. "This is your phone? Your current phone? How old is this thing?"

"Younger than some of the grease stains on your shirt, though that's not saying much," she shot back. "Seriously, do you ever do laundry?"

"Not important. But I guess we won't be watching Netflix on this disappointment of a phone."

"What part of virtual bankruptcy did you not understand? So sorry I prioritized having a place to live above keeping an expensive, high-tech smartphone."

He shrugged. "Well, it just means that our choices are sit here in silence or sift through your mark's impressive collection of pornos."

Ashton stared at him with one eyebrow raised. "Wait a minute. I distinctly remember you saying something about 'Batman levels of wealth'. Where's your smartphone?"

Deadpool gasped as if he was totally scandalized. "You think I would bring an easily-hacked device filled with sensitive information on a job?" She kept her gaze level. "Well, you might have a point there. It got broken."

He moved as if to hand her the shattered electronic, but she recoiled. "It's covered in blood!"

"Well, what do you expect? It broke in my pocket and has been stabbing me for the last hour."

"Disgusting! Oh, and look! You've left an absolutely beautiful bloodstain on the couch. Who knows what kind of diseases you've got?"

"Hey! The only thing running through these veins is talent. And the drive to succeed. And maybe some unresolved daddy issues. But none of that is communicable!"

Ashton raked a hand through her hair frustratedly. "How much longer?"

Craning to look back at the clock behind him, Deadpool said, "Two hours, thirty-eight minutes."

Groaning, Ashton complained, "That's so much time! What are we going to do?"

With a slight smirk, Deadpool looked her up and down, exaggerating the eyebrow twitch so she would be sure to know where he was looking. "Well, I just decided what I want to do…"

Ashton glared and crossed her arms uncomfortably. This placed her dominant right hand next to the butt of her gun. She stared at Deadpool, silently daring the masked mercenary to go on. Instead of speaking, however, his hands moved to his waistband as he waggled eyebrows at her. She tensed, ready to pull her Sig.

* * *

Deadpool drew his hands back, holding up a silvery disc in triumph as he watched Ashton's face. She blinked confusedly for a moment. "Wh- What?" she stammered.

"We're going to watch Spiderman!" He grinned at her shock. "Why, what did you think we were going to do?" He gasped theatrically and clapped his free hand over his mouth. "Ashton! Such a dirty mind. I thought you were a lady."

Seeming to ignore the last part of his statement, Ashton groaned. "Are you serious? I hate Spiderman!"

Trying to drown out the resulting buzzing of the voices in his head, Deadpool sang a nonsense song as he sat fiddling with the DVD player. Apparently unaware of his internal torment, Ashton spoke from behind him. "Are you even listening? I said-"

"I know what you said," Deadpool interrupted, working the words into the song he was making up. "But I'm pretending I didn't hear you because Spiderman happens to be my best friend!"

"Of course he is," Ashton said patronizingly. "And how are we going to 'watch' Spiderman? Is this just a collection of news stories and crappy YouTube videos?"

"Sort of, but it's in chronological order. And, of course, there's some exposition, a cameo, and an un-fucking-believable amount of sass." Deadpool let out a giggle and stayed sitting on the floor in front of the TV as the movie started.

An itching between his shoulder blades warned Deadpool that Ashton was watching him more than she was watching the movie and that was unacceptable. How would she ever experience the wonder that was Spiderman if she was busy eying up the masterpiece that was Deadpool? He glared back over his shoulder at her and pointedly patted the carpeted floor next to him.

Ashton curled her lip. "You can't be serious. I feel no urge whatsoever to sit on that disgusting floor."

"You have to," Deadpool whined. "This makes it better. Almost like you're in a theater, watching this on the big screen."

Ashton rolled her eyes, but joined him on the floor – though she sat several feet away. He looked over, irritated. "No, center yourself in front of the TV, otherwise there's no point." She scooted over roughly two inches and he gave an exasperated sigh. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he hauled her toward the middle of the screen, which was actually very close to where he sat. Deadpool refused to give up his spot, regardless. He wasn't going to miss a second of his Spidey.

**Look at her. She's trying to keep her distance from the crazy guy.**

_Of course she is. She thinks he's hitting on her._

**_Yeah, right!_ **

_I don't understand the tone._

**True, she's not a bad-looking lady. Little on the serious side for us, maybe…**

_Doesn't matter for what he wants to do with her._

_*Sound of a fist bump*_

**_Could you guys knock it off? She's pretty. Whatever. But right now… Spidey butt._ **

Deadpool sat forward and made a noise not unlike Homer Simpson when he sees a doughnut. At Ashton's curious face, he gestured at the screen, where a particularly glorious camera angle was showing Spiderman's backside to wonderful advantage. "Just look at it. Isn't that the most wondrous ass to grace the earth?"

Ashton's jaw dropped. "I thought you were friends with him? Friends don't usually comment on each other's butts."

"Maybe _friends_ don't, but _best friends_ do, and Spidey and I are definitely friends of the _best_ variety."

"Wait!" Ashton burst, slapping a hand to the carpeted floor between them, though even her small hand barely fit in the space. "You're that guy who's obsessed with Spiderman, aren't you?"

Deadpool turned back to give the screen his full attention. Stiffly, he said, "I don't know what you mean."

"The ultra-threatening man who broke into my apartment is the Super-Stalker!" Ashton let out a laugh that ended in a groan. "I can't believe my life sometimes."

"And _I_ can't believe I was thinking you were actually pretty cool."

"Were you now?" Ashton asked in a skeptical tone.

"Yeah, but not anymore. You're still an asshole."

"I think you need an asshole around to keep you on track." He made a noncommittal noise and she bumped his shoulder with hers. "Not me, of course, but I think you're pretty cool, too."

"Aww, really?" Deadpool squealed, wrapping an arm around Ashton's shoulder in a half-hug.

"Yeah, you are. Especially for a Super-Stalker."

Though he relished the back-and-forth of their banter, Deadpool gave his best offended gasp and pushed Ashton over. She rolled to lie on her back laughing and he chuckled along. He lay back, resting his weight on a forearm braced against the floor as he looked down at her. A warm feeling started to spread through his chest and he didn't like it, so he bounded up to check the window. Nothing was there. He checked the door as well, and it was also clear.

Ashton yawned and sat up, propping her head on her upraised hand. "It's time?"

"Yep. I'm headed out now." He stopped just in front of the door and looked back at her. "You know, you should stay here. I don't think anyone is going to come after me and look here. You might as well get some use out of the place."

She grimaced. "Nah. I need to get out and looking for my target if I ever want to get paid."

Deadpool sighed and stopped halfway through the door, resting his forehead against the doorframe to avoid eye contact with Ashton. "Yeah, that's the thing… Your target was my job. He's dead. Nice spending time with you! Bye!"

"Son of a -!"

Deadpool slammed the door behind himself and grinned cheerfully. "What a great Valentine's Day!"

* * *

Author's Note - This started out as a one-shot, but it snowballed into a 10-chapter beast with a convoluted plot. This was originally posted on Valentine's Day about three years ago on ff.net. Don't roast me for the moments of OOC-ness in this fic. I hadn't quite figured Deadpool out yet! I'd be glad to hear from you, but this story is long since written and I'm not looking to change much about it, so I can't take any suggestions. Thanks for reading!


	2. Guess Who's Back, Baby?!

After giving the cabbie her address, Ashton settled back into the seat and watched the buildings of her newly-adopted city flash by. New York was fairly interesting, but she missed being able to drive herself around. The Big Apple wasn't a very car-friendly place.

The move here from St. Louis had been something she agonized over for several weeks, but too many of her connections were getting reluctant over her lack of bribe money. She had figured it would be best to move on. As added incentive, New York was the cream of the crop where American skip-tracing was concerned. Ashton had been assured that she would be swimming in the skips here.

Surprisingly, one of the hardest things to leave behind in St. Louis was her apartment – the same she had been trapped in with Deadpool so many months before. It wasn't because of any emotional connection, not really. It was actually because the masked man managed to be even more overbearing when he wasn't physically present.

_Ashton had been technically squatting in the apartment for nearly four days when a knock came on the door. Kicking aside the pallet she had made for herself from blankets and couch cushions – because the bed was dicey at best – she put on her best professional face and got ready to spin her 'bail bonds agent searching for a skip' story. The person was indeed the landlord, but he didn't ask why she was there. In fact, he seemed ridiculously pleased to see her._

" _Ah, Miss Ashton? I trust you are finding your new accommodations to be comfortable?"_

" _Yes…" she trailed warily, expecting the man to give her notice to vacate._

" _I just wanted to come up and let you know personally that Mr. Pool has paid your rent for the next three months."_

" _He… Wait. Who did what, exactly?"_

_The man cleared his throat. "A Mr. Pool said that you were in need of an apartment and that you had decided on this one. Most convenient timing, too. The gentleman who used to stay here hasn't paid rent in several months and was to be evicted anyway."_

_Not really caring to hear about the man Deadpool had murdered – something for which she was still angry with him – Ashton cut the man off. "So you're telling me that this apartment is mine for the next three months?"_

" _Well, yes. And longer, if you so choose and are willing to continue paying rent. As long as you're an upstanding tenant, of course."_

" _Of course," she agreed dazedly. "Thank you for coming to tell me and thank Mr. Pool next time you speak to him. Have a nice day."_

_She shut the door despite the sound of the landlord's questions and comments. The man had continued to be overly-conscientious to Ashton throughout her time in the apartment complex. (_ _It wasn't until she informed him she was leaving and he would need to contact 'Mr. Pool' that the truth came out: Deadpool had paid the man an exorbitant amount of money in exchange for Ashton to stay in the apartment without any awkward questions asked.)_

Thinking back over all of this, Ashton had to shake her head. Just after this visit, a cleaning crew had arrived, pulled all of the ratty and molding furniture from the apartment, and vigorously scrubbed the entire space. They left without bringing any furniture back in, and just about the time Ashton was wondering what she was going to do, a different crew arrived with furniture to pile in. All of it was beautiful, well-crafted, and covered in absurd notes from Deadpool. Well, none of them explicitly stated that they were from the mercenary, but who else would write, ' _This end table matches the fake gold on the balcony across the street'_?

In any case, these deliveries hadn't been the end of things. At least once every week, a knock on her door would sound and when she opened it, she would inevitably find a large amount of food sitting outside. It was mostly stacks of pizza or a gigantic bag of chimichangas, though sometimes he broke up the monotony with a whole mess of Chinese food.

She had felt guilty enough about the charity to try contacting the owners of the restaurants, asking them to reject any further orders placed on her behalf, but had been refused. It seemed that Deadpool was a rather extravagant tipper, and the restaurant owners merely told her to throw the food away if she didn't want it. Much as she disliked the feeling of getting pity food, she still hated the thought of wasting it, so it had been eaten. Each order had been enough to provide her food for most of the following week!

Though she was still somewhat embarrassed by the necessity of Deadpool paying for her apartment, Ashton couldn't deny that it was a kind gesture and had sent her thanks to the man through the landlord. Without the burden of rent – and with the added benefit of a greater number of skips – she had managed to catch up financially and even save enough to get a decent apartment in New York.

They pulled up to the new apartment and Ashton paid the fare as well as giving the man a tip. He had been very patient as she loaded all of her groceries into the trunk. She retrieved them now, carefully balancing everything in her arms so that she wouldn't have to make more than one trip. She lived on the third floor of the building, and even with the use of an elevator, making multiple trips was beyond pointless.

Huffing a little with the effort, she trundled all of her groceries off the elevator and down the hallway. She had to set a few bags on the floor so she could dig out her keys, but chose to nudge them across the threshold with her foot rather than pick them back up. This ended up being better in the long run, because the sight of the large, carefully-posed man standing in her living room would have made her drop everything.

"Honey, you're home early!" he cried joyously.

Ashton, having already dropped the groceries in her arms to pull her gun, groaned as she looked down the sights at Deadpool. It struck too much of déjà vu, so she blew out a breath and lowered the gun until it pointed at the floor. She stared at him for a moment. "Give me one good reason not to call the police right now."

"Let's see… Do you actually own the apartment this time?" She glared and he laughed. "Just a little joke, a reminder of our past adventures. But to answer your question, that's an unregistered - and therefore black market - gun, if I'm going off the ground-down spot where the serial number's supposed to be. Don't think you'd want me telling the police about that little feature."

Ashton clicked the safety on and holstered the gun, but didn't remove it. Instead, she moved to the couch and sat, groaning. "This has to be some kind of a nightmare. This cannot be happening to me again. What did I do to deserve this?"

"Something truly, deeply wonderful," Deadpool said happily.

"Why are you here? I swear, if you're using me to hide out from someone again…"

"No, of course not! I'm here to see you." At her stunned look, he frowned. "What? You said I'm cool, I said you're cool. We're friends."

"Then, as I remember, you killed the biggest skip of my career."

"And you forgave me, as friends do. And, speaking of which, friends tell each other when they're moving to another city."

"I did – sort of. I told the landlord to thank you, but your charity was no longer needed. That's pretty much an information drop and a goodbye all in one."

"A goodbye?" he asked, white eyes wide, then he threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, babe. Don't you know your new chosen city is my home? I live here, too!"

"You… What?" she asked, floored.

"Imma New Yawker, auf couwrse," he drew, putting on an over-exaggerated Brooklyn accent and grinning at his own antics.

"Have you lived here long?" The question was asked with the air of hoping he was just staying temporarily until he finished a job and would then move along to another place. With any luck, it would be one that was very far away.

"As long as I've been alive! I mean, minus all the years I lived in Canada."

Ashton absorbed this, debating over the different responses she could give and settled eventually on attitude. _Maybe he'll decide that this 'friendship' is more trouble than it's worth and leave me alone._ It wasn't that she disliked the masked mercenary; in fact, he made her laugh more than anything else, but she couldn't deny that the large man was intimidating, to say the least.

There were two ways to deal with Deadpool, as she had figured out last time: react to his teasing and amuse him more, or steer into the skid - so to speak - and turn it back around on him. Deciding the second option was more to her liking, Ashton lifted an eyebrow. "Did you move here from Canada just to follow Spider-Man around? Because I'm really not ready to confront the reality of you being the Super-Stalker." He made a face at her and she gasped. "Hang on, aren't the Avengers based here as well? Are you expanding your collection? How will Spider-Man feel?!"

"Shut up," he said brusquely, though she could hear the smile he was trying to hide under his mask. "Why are you in New York, anyway?"

"Skip-tracing," she answered simply. "Bigger city, more skips; more skips, more money." She felt her face flush. "Speaking of, I can pay back the rent I owe you after a few more jobs. Just let me know where to send the money."

Ashton couldn't see his face with the mask, but by the body language, she would swear Deadpool looked offended. "Are you serious? I didn't pay your rent to get money back eventually and I'm not here to collect anything you 'owe' me. I made sure you had a place to live since you were actually willing to have a conversation with me and didn't rat me out." He paused a moment and continued on in a thoughtful tone, "Or harvest my organs to sell on the black market. You needed help and I help where I can."

"Well, it's very much appreciated." Sensing the mood growing intense, she joked, "I think the food was a little much, though. What was with all the junk food?"

"Junk food? I didn't send you any junk food. I sent you a perfectly-balanced diet according to the food pyramid: cheese, dough, grease, sauce, and questionable meats. Granted, I didn't provide you with the perfect amount of sugar, but I figured you could buy your own Mountain Dew."

"Wow." It was all Ashton could muster, slowly shaking her head.

"What?" Deadpool asked, concerned. "If you can't afford Mountain Dew, you should've just told me. I would never force anyone to go through a Dew-less life!"

"The wow was more a question of how you're not dead if those are your dietary staples."

"That's pretty rich coming from someone who just has three cans of Pringles and a jar of peanut butter in her cabinets."

"Again with the judgment of my apartment!"

"Last time doesn't count! That wasn't even your apartment!"

Ashton paused. "Wait, did you go through my cabinets?"

"I did a lot more than that!" he exclaimed, seeming proud of himself. "I know everything about you, Ashton Akerstrom." While she was busy gaping, he glanced down at the envelope he held and made a triumphant sort of noise. "Hey, both of us have a first and last name that start with the same letters! What's that called, again?"

"Alliteration," Ashton supplied automatically.

Deadpool giggled. "Alliterative Ashton Akerstrom. It's catchy!"

"Y- You went through my mail?" It was a little difficult to talk over the buzzing in her ears, but Ashton managed.

"Well, I didn't open any of it. That's a federal offense and I would never do anything ill- Hey, are you okay?"

All of Ashton's feelings of privacy had gone crashing down in the last thirty seconds, but what would the mercenary know about that? A simple search on the internet had been all that was needed to find out his name, his history, even a vague idea of birthdate and powers. With only the tightness in her voice giving away how angry she was, Ashton said, "Well, since you now know my full name and everything about me, I think it's time for you to leave."

For what was possibly the first time since she had met the man, Deadpool was completely shocked - not the fake surprise he sometimes employed for effect, but real, palpable shock. "You- What? But why?"

"Because you went through my stuff? That's not okay. You now know all this random stuff about me while I know next to nothing about you."

"Oh. Well, we can fix that! My name-"

"-Is Wade Winston Wilson. You're a mercenary and you grew up in Canada. You got your powers through the Weapon X program. All of this information I found out online and no information of the kind can be found out about me. You can't just tell me stuff that's general knowledge and expect it to be a fair trade."

"Hmm… I mean, it sounds like you already know plenty about me, but I get what you're saying." He paused, staring at her suspiciously. "Are you sure you didn't set this all up to get information on me?"

Ashton glared. "Really? I set up you going through my apartment to find out all kinds of sensitive information on me in the hopes that you'll tell me something a lot of people don't know? Trust me, I would far rather you never went through my stuff. Why would I plan that?"

"I don't know. Maybe you're a Slytherin?"

"Really? You want to make personal judgments about me based on where I fit in a system described in a book series for children?" An awkward silence fell and Ashton muttered, "Besides, I'm a Ravenclaw."

"Aww, a 'Claw? That explains so much. I'm a Hufflepuff, your natural enemy."

"Y- Wait. You're a Hufflepuff? How did that happen?"

"Hey, have you met me? I'm the Puffiest of Puffs!" He stopped, considering what he had just said as an odd look crossed his face.

"Guess you're right, Puffy," she conceded with a grin, but grew serious once more as she went on. "Anyway, I'm sorry. I just… I can't have you in an apartment filled with sensitive information about myself and not be a nervous wreck all night. So please, just leave until I figure out a way to make this right again." Oddly reluctant to kick the man out of her apartment, Ashton still walked over to the door and began to open it before Deadpool stopped her.

"Wait. I think I might have a way to fix this."

* * *

_This is definitely not going to end well._

**Nope. But that's what we do! Something's going well? Fuck it up now before our life can get any better!**

Doing his best to ignore the voices, Deadpool made eye contact with the obviously-curious Ashton. He took a deep breath to settle the writhing in his stomach - _**did something get sealed up in there last time I was disemboweled?**_ \- and offered, "I'll tell you what's under my mask."

_Such an elegant system._

**Right? Keeps anyone from getting too close. Can't get hurt by anyone else, or his insides will be as scarred as his outsides.**

_Hardly possible._

**Burn!**

_**Will you idiots shut up? Kind of going through a moment of existential crisis right now!** _

_That was a rather long word for someone who writes with crayons._

**At least he hasn't sunk to eating them yet.**

_Give it time. I know he's been eyeing up the 'Macaroni and Cheese' colored one._

_**Guys!** _

Shaking himself from his internal peanut gallery, Deadpool focused back on the woman in front of him. Ashton seemed to be thinking over his deal carefully, which was oddly comforting. At least she seemed to understand how big a deal this was.

"Is it worth it?" she asked eventually. "I mean, it would have to be something pretty bad to make up for going through all of my stuff."

"'Pretty bad'?" he repeated. "Let's just say that my face hasn't been called pretty in a long time and what happened to it was bad. It's worth it. Do we have a deal?"

"Fine," Ashton said shortly. "It's a deal. Go ahead."

Deadpool took a deep breath. His mask suddenly felt stifling and overly-tight, and he began plucking at it nervously. He had told people about - hell, he had _shown_ people - his fucked-up face before, but never someone he considered a friend. It was terrifying.

Face twisting with the pitying expression he hated, Ashton placated, "You don't have to tell me if you're that uncomfortable. I won't force you."

"Thanks," Deadpool snorted. _**As if she would really be able to force me to do anything.**_ "But I think you deserve to know. You asked for something pretty bad and you'll get it." Trying to force the writhing in his intestines to stop, he forced out in a carefully-casual tone, "I am hideously scarred."

Ashton's face was blank. "You're scarred. As in, your face is scarred?"

"No, my whole body. And not just scarred, _hideously_ scarred. There's a difference, and it's important that you recognize it."

Studying him intently, Ashton asked, "Can I see?"

The twisting in his stomach turned into a sudden, violent lurch, and Deadpool quickly began moving toward the door. "You were right. Maybe it would be best if I just left."

_That was a mistake. If hearing about your face wasn't enough to scare her away, seeing it definitely would be._

**Yeah. You look like the zombie of a guy who already had gangrene.**

_Apt description._

_**Thanks, guys, but I already know about all of this.**_ _**Why else would I be making tracks for the front door?**_

_Because she obviously doesn't trust you enough to let you near her back door?_

**Ayyyy!**

Unable to help himself, Deadpool let out a snort at that. _**Nice one. Figure out a way for us to use it on Spidey next time we see him. It's been a while and I know he misses- Oh, what bitch-slapping hell is this?**_

Ashton had planted herself firmly in front of the door. Deadpool could easily move her aside, but something about the way her jaw was clenched said it wasn't going to be nearly as easy as it should have been. "Ashton, get out of the way. It would be best for everyone if I just go." She didn't move. "You know, melt into the night? Disappear into the shadows? Fade into the darkness?"

"It's four in the afternoon. The sun hasn't even gone down yet."

"My suit is red. Maybe I can fade into the sunset. It'll be poetic, like I'm some kind of cowboy."

_**If he brings back the cowboy hat, I'm out of here.** _

_Agreed._

"Killjoys," Deadpool muttered, ignoring Ashton's curious face. "Anyway, would you mind? I'd like to use that door."

"I'm sorry," she apologized hurriedly. "I shouldn't have asked to see your face. That was crossing a line and I won't do it again. If you ever feel comfortable taking your mask off around me, I promise I won't judge you, no matter what you look like, but until then, I won't say another word about it." Ashton's hazel eyes bounced back and forth, studying his blank white ones as she tried to read an expression. "Are we okay?"

"You need a nickname," he said suddenly. "I can't keep thinking of you as 'Ashton'. It's too long, the author is sick of writing it out, and the readers are all tired of reading the whole thing. I'm just gonna call you Ash, all right?"

One corner of her mouth quirked. "All right. I mean, I didn't understand that whole middle part, but you can call me Ash. Does this mean you're staying?"

"Yeah, I guess." Ash nodded and began walking toward the sofa. He easily kept pace with her and threw an arm around her shoulders. "Our friendship must mean a lot to you, huh? I knew I would grow on you. I'm like the world's cutest wart."

"I would have described you more like an infectious disease, but I guess 'wart' works just as well," she bantered back, shrugging his arm off of her.

"Infectious disease?" he replied, fluttering his eyes as he flattened fingertips against his chest. "You've got to stop flirting with me this way, Ash! What will people say? What will become of our friendship? _What will the children think?!_ " Before she could release a scathing retort, he smoothly changed the subject. "So, you said something about more skip cases in New York. Any active cases right now?"

Ash snorted and as she walked back to where she had dropped all of her stuff, he saw why: along with her groceries, she had been carrying a bag stuffed completely full of files and documents. "I was told I would be swimming in the skips, but no one said anything about drowning in them."

"Huh. Let's see if I can help you out with any of these." Deadpool hummed softly to himself as he sorted through the impressive stack of cases Ash was setting out on the table. "Dead. Dead. Massachusetts. Hiding in Koreatown. Dead."

"Wait," Ash ordered, putting out a hand to stop him from sorting through the pile. "You're telling me that an oddly high number of my skips are dead? Do you know for sure?"

"Well, I hope they're dead, anyway. Otherwise, my abilities as a professional mercenary are going to be doubted, since I've already gotten paid for all of those."

Ash made a frustrated noise. "Do you go out of your way to kill my skips?"

"One time! One! Time! But also, more than that now, because most of these dudes are dead."

"Yeah," Ash said, nodding decisively. "This is it. This is the beginning of my descent into bankruptcy. I'm gonna be homeless."

"Aww," Deadpool cooed. "You know I'll pay your rent for you."

"Or you could just stop killing my skips!"

"Stop getting assigned dipshits who have people hate them enough to hire mercenaries!"

"You know what?" she asked sharply.

"What?" he challenged.

"I'm going to have you write down all of the locations you found the people you killed and where you left the bodies. If I'm not going to get paid for bringing people in, I'm at least going to get paid for closing their cases out!"

"Are you insane? Is that going to be your revenge for un-aliving your skips? You want me thrown in prison? Cold, Akerstrom. Very cold."

"Why would you go to jail?"

"For some reason, un-aliving people - even ones who deserve it - is illegal. I know! I don't get it, either."

"How exactly do you think you'll get caught? Did you lick all of your victims or something?"

"No, just the one." Ash seemed to have no response to this, and Deadpool capitalized on her silence. "With modern crime-solving being what it is and the police being on my ass as it is, I try to stay as low-key as possible. That's low-key as in low-dash-key, not Loki. He's neutral evil, not chaotic neutral. They don't mix well, kind of like putting whipped cream on a chimichanga. Well, actually, I would try that-"

"What are you talking about?" Ash finally interrupted. "The police aren't going to find out about you because you're a top-notch assassin who takes his job - if nothing else - seriously. Besides, as far as my job knows, I'll be finding out about these guys from morgues or police stations, but there's nothing saying I need to turn the cases in to the police. Now, all of that about chimichangas, you're on your own. I don't know what you were getting at and I don't really care to."

"Your loss," Deadpool shrugged. "Will you at least be subtle about the un-alived ones?"

"Of course. I'll make sure to space out those cases, make it really realistic. Now, how many of these other skips are dead?"

"Do you mind? They're not 'dead', they're 'un-alived'." Ash gave the masked mercenary a droll stare. "What? It just sounds better, you know?"

"You know the word 'dead' makes up exactly one half of your name, right?"

"That's different."

"How?"

"Anyway, give me a minute to look at these and I'll tell you which of these guys are… gone for good, and where you might find whatever's left." Ash hummed noncommittally and began to put away her groceries.

* * *

While Ash walked around, tucking canned goods into cabinets and whatnot, she was keeping a careful eye on Deadpool. It wasn't because she didn't trust him, though that would make far more sense than the actual explanation: he amused her. The things that he said or did were interesting and funny more often than not, and she enjoyed watching him. _Creepy? You bet._

As though he was subconsciously trying to prove her point, Deadpool bobbed his head a little to an unheard tune and shuffled through the pages of information. She complained a lot about him killing- oh, _un-aliving_ \- her cases, but by telling her which ones were able to be tracked down, he was saving her a lot of time. He was slowing down, however, and Ash knew it wouldn't be long until he had gotten distracted yet again.

It all started with a glance at the surrounding table. Then, a second look took in the remote sitting nearby, but Ash could tell it hadn't sunk in yet. Finally, Deadpool dropped the sheaf of papers in his hands and lunged for the remote, clutching it like he had been given an award. "A remote? _You have a TV?_ Why didn't you say anything before?!"

Ash rolled her eyes as he excitedly turned on the set. _So much for any more help with the cases._ Embarrassingly enough, she had left it on the Disney channel, which was now playing _Frozen_. To her shock, Deadpool didn't scoff at this, but actually left the movie playing. He was still bobbing his head, but now it was to the beginning of _Love is an Open Door_.

After a minute, Ash started humming softly along. After a day of chasing people through some of the darkest places America had to offer, the clean morality of Disney movies often helped her feel less dingy and she had grown to know most of the movies fairly well. _Frozen_ wasn't one of her favorites, but Ash had to admit that the soundtrack was excellent.

Automatically, Ash began humming the lower part of the duet, far more comfortable for her alto voice than Anna's higher-pitched harmony. Deadpool swiveled from his seat on the couch to look back at her several times, but she tried not to pay too much attention. The mercenary shouldn't be able to make her feel uncomfortable in her own apartment, especially not if they were really going to be friends.

At a completely random point, Deadpool began matching Ash's singing note for note - except that he was singing the ridiculously high-pitched part written for Anna. Ash would normally have been laughing hysterically at the idea of such a large man singing in such a female range, but she was too busy being impressed. Though the notes were difficult, Deadpool was hitting every one perfectly.

When the song had ended, Deadpool sank back into the couch, clearing his throat roughly. Smiling over at him, Ash shook her head. "That was… impressive."

Deadpool shrugged. "A little on the embarrassing side, but sure."

"Why should you be embarrassed? You hit all of those notes perfectly and I don't think I've ever met another man who could do that."

"I know; I meant you. It has to be embarrassing to be so much worse than me at something." He scoffed and polished his gloved nails on his chest. "You don't have to tell me I'm good. I know I killed it… Just like I did with that guy you were supposed to bring in! Eyyy!"

Ash glared. "'Eyyy'? What, is your Canadian background suddenly catching up with you?"

"How dare you mock the country that gave me life and shaped me into the person I am today? Okay, so most of that could also be due to the cancer and experimental cancer-curing procedures, but you know what I'm trying to say here."

Her gaze sharpened intently. "So that's how all of the so-called 'hideous scarring' happened? Experimental cancer-curing procedures?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Deadpool denied innocently, seeming to grow extremely interested in the documents spread in front of him.

Feeling a strange sense of pity for the deranged man, Ash let the topic slide. _He keeps bringing up his appearance, but he freaked out so badly when I said I wanted to see his face. I just don't understand this guy… Then again, this is the second time he's tried to leave after I asked him to take off the mask. It's pretty obvious that he's shown people what he looks like before and gotten a bad reaction from it._ She sighed, giving up on the whole thing. _If I'm really his friend, I have to be patient and let him decide when he wants to show me. I can't- I_ won't- _push._

"From the serious expression and the silence, I'm guessing that you're thinking way too hard over there," Deadpool called over his shoulder.

"No, no," Ash denied. "It's just taking me a minute to sink down to that level of stupid. Give me a bit and I'll manage it. Being in the same room as you helps."

"Ha ha ha," Deadpool said sarcastically. "I only like that movie because Anna is hot. So is Kristoff, actually. Hans is just a dick, but I guess he's still do-able. It all comes down to personal preference."

" _Such_ a Captain Jack Harkness," Ash muttered as Deadpool grinned at the reference to their past conversation. "Wait, you didn't say anything about Elsa. I mean, she's the one wearing the sexy dress and has the ice powers."

Deadpool quirked a brow. "Wow, 'sexy dress'? Kind of weird to be perving out on a cartoon made for children."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Is that not your backpack in the corner? The one covered in _My Little Pony_ stickers?"

"I am offended," the masked man said, voice filled with mock rage as he scooped up the item in question and stood. "I'll need some time to cool down, then I'll be more receptive to your apology. I'm feeling gracious, so you can just text it to me. My number is written on your bathroom mirror. Toodles!"

With that abrupt farewell, Deadpool pranced out of Ash's apartment, leaving her to mutter confusedly in the silence. Sure enough, when she walked into the bathroom later that night, she found a note scrawled in what seemed to be dried-up toothpaste.

_Ash,_

_Since I know you're too shy to ask for it, here's my number. Text me anytime!_

_Love,_

_Deadpool_

_P.S. This would have looked much more classy written in lipstick. You really need to wear more makeup._

Ash snorted at that and entered the number as a new contact in her phone, on a whim writing it down under _The Ultimate Brony_ , chuckling as she did so. Deadpool would probably never see it, but the name was enough to make her smile and that's what mattered. As Ash began scrubbing the toothpaste off of her slightly-scratched mirror, she had to admit that life with Deadpool as a friend was never dull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheesy? Yes. Unnecessary? Yes. Fun to write? Hell, yes. Brace yourselves, though: there'll be an actual plot starting in the next chapter!


	3. Holy Plot, Batman!

Being a mercenary was good money.

No one had ever questioned that, seeming to accept it as a high price deserved for giving up part of his morality… part of his soul. Yes, there was plenty of money to be made it it, but there was another reason Wade Wilson liked being a mercenary: the thrill.

When you're essentially immortal, life loses a lot of its edge. Nothing could permanently injure or even kill Deadpool, so he grew to revel in the thrill of the hunt and the finality of the end. The more exacting and precise the directions on how the hit was to be carried out, the more he alive he felt, the more connected to himself, and the more non-super.

**Okay, now it's dramatic and bad grammar.**

_I have to agree. I liked the artistic direction you were taking at first, but then you got overly wrapped up in it and the narrative started to drag._

What the..? You guys can't interact with me! I'm the author!

**What, Deadpool is the only one around here who can break the fourth wall? I call favoritism!**

_He is the only one of us who's ever had a movie made about him._

**Still. The whole thing just seems kind of unfair.**

Um, voices? We're kind of in the middle of a scene here.

_Are we? I was under the impression you wanted to wax poetic about Wade 'Motherfuckin' Wilson._

**Yeah, we were just trying to distract ourselves until you were done.**

Fine! Whatever, I'm done. Lead on. No wonder Deadpool is so crazy.

**Rude.**

_**Yeah, you're all rude. Now, will you please shut up? I've been after this guy for almost a week and my deadline is coming up. Have to make the money somehow!** _

Sorry! Wait, I was under the impression that you don't cash your checks.

_**No, not normally, but I've decided to become a little more open-minded to taking money from crazy bad guys. Can I get on with this now?** _

Uh, sure.

_**Thank you!** _

Deadpool shook his head, trying to return his focus to the moment. **_Oh, yeah._** His leather-gloved fist tightened in the material of the man's shirt. This contract had been shockingly hard to fulfill and he was running out of time before the deadline. The man whimpered as Deadpool drew a gun from one of his thigh holsters. Normally, he would never waste a bullet by shooting someone he was standing this close to, but the instructions he was given specifically ordered the man to be shot.

A noise cut through the whimpering and Deadpool groaned as Avril Lavigne - through the immortal tones of _Girlfriend_ \- let him know he had a call. Blindly, he slapped his pocket in an attempt to make the phone stop ringing, but a clear memory of the shattered glass he had pulled from his leg in St. Louis was enough to make him stop and. He pulled the phone from his pocket and answered it manually, taking only a half-second to shoot his target before accepting the call.

"My name… Is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

"Wade?" Deadpool recognized the voice on the other end as belonging to a very confused Tony Stark.

"Yessss, Precioussss?"

"Why are- whatever, I don't care. I know this is weird, but I traced two of the missed calls on this phone and they led back to you. Wade, we need you to come in."

 _ **Shit. I don't have a movie quote for that one.**_ His white eyes landed on the body lying crumpled on the trash-encrusted ground. "I see dead people," he whispered after an appropriately thick silence.

"Wade." Tony said impatiently.

"Okay, fine. What phone are we talking about? And why am I coming in? I'm still not going to join your little superhero spandex squad."

"First off, no way in hell would we invite you into the Avengers. But more importantly, do you know a-" there was a muffled conversation happening on the other end of the line before Tony came back. "-an Ashton Akerson?"

"Ash? What happened? What's going on? Is she okay? I'm on my way, don't let her leave!"

Tony said something, but Deadpool didn't hear it. After a quick picture of the body, he shoved the phone back into his pocket and sprinted out of the alleyway toward Avengers Tower.

The trip - which should have taken about twenty minutes on a normal day - was completed in seven minutes and forty-two seconds. Deadpool had gotten quite a bit of attention between the sprinting, the suit, and the fresh blood spatters, but his mind was on more important things. Even the voices were freaked out.

**Do you think she's okay?**

_**Of course she isn't okay! Tony 'Literal Iron Heart' Stark wouldn't have called us if she was!** _

**Do you think she's dead?**

_No, I think someone else would have called if she was dead. That seems like more of a Captain America area._

**True, true. Alive, then, but hurt.**

_Yes, probably hurt fairly badly if the Avengers are involved. Either way, when we find out who did this…_

_**We kill them all,**_ Deadpool finished firmly. For once, both voices were perfectly in agreement with his decision, and the masked mercenary entered the first floor of Avengers Tower. Security didn't even twitch at his approach.

_Stark must have warned them we were coming._

**Good thing, too. We're not gonna stop and check in for a visitor's pass.**

Deadpool snorted. _**Let the sons of bitches try to stop me. They'll be un-alived so fast, their freshly-picked heads will spin.**_

_Wonderful imagery. Just poetic._

**We're lucky he hasn't mentioned finger-painting with entrails yet.**

_**Give me a minute. I'll work my way up to it.** _

Deadpool burst in through the doors of the floor used as a sort of hospital setup, installed after the fourth time Clint Barton had to go to the emergency room for stitches after a training session with Natasha. Things had been quiet around Avengers Tower lately, and Ash was lying on the first bed in the nearly-empty room.

He sucked a breath in through his mask at the sight of her. Ash's face was bruised and bloody, a line of neat stitches trailing from below her ear to the underside of her jaw. Most of her body was covered by the casual jeans and tee shirt she still wore, but her left arm was splinted and he could see a bandage peeking out from beneath the bottom of a pant leg. She was awake, though, which soothed his frazzled nerves slightly.

At the moment, she was distracted, speaking to Bruce Banner. For what was obviously not the first time, she asked, "Are you sure I shouldn't just go to a regular hospital?"

Banner shook his head. "They attacked you once, and there's no reason to believe you won't be attacked again. Besides, we don't know who sent these guys. If they're more than human, you need to be somewhere with a little better than average security."

Ash sighed, but Jarvis interrupted before she could really get into a session of complaining. "I have completed another round of tests, Miss Akerstrom, but I will need blood samples to continue from here." As Ash began rolling up the sleeve of her uninjured arm, Banner moved back to allow the nurse on staff to prepare the syringe and vials.

Tired of playing the silent observer - though he had no idea how the pair had managed to miss his dramatic entrance - Deadpool marched forward. "What the _fuck_?!" he called shrilly, voice echoing in the cavernous room.

"Doctor Banner, are there any signs of brain damage?" Ash asked, seeming to ignore Deadpool completely.

The dark-haired man frowned. "No, why? Are you feeling any pain?"

"No, I just distinctly remember telling you that you shouldn't contact Deadpool. There's no reason to disturb him over all of this since we have exactly no information about anything."

Banner had the grace to look ashamed. "I'm sorry, Ashton. You know- or maybe you don't. Tony gets really protective sometimes and it's hard to stop him from doing whatever he thinks is best. He was sure that Deadpool needed to get involved."

"Do you not want me here?" Deadpool asked from across the room, suddenly uncertain. Everything in him screamed that he needed to be there, to make sure that Ash was okay, but if she wanted him to leave, he wouldn't force his way into the situation.

Ash stared at him for a long moment. "Of course I want you here. I just didn't think that you needed to be pulled away from what was obviously an important hit." She gestured at his bloody suit and Deadpool blushed under his mask.

Deciding to play it off, he strolled to the side of Ash's bed as quickly as he could and still look casual. When he was close enough, he grabbed her hand and leaned in for a kiss. She pushed him back by the forehead. "What are you doing?" Ash asked laughingly.

"I was worried!" Deadpool stood back and surveyed her. Her condition didn't improve from being closer. "You look like shit, babe."

"Oh, and after I spent all that time getting my hair done," she said dryly.

Banner snorted a laugh and the nurse even smiled. "Can we have the room, please?" Deadpool said when they stopped. As the two respectfully withdrew toward the hallway he knew contained the lab, Deadpool grinned down at Ash and confided, "I've always wanted to say that and have people actually listen!"

"Landmark moment!" Ash cheered and he had a minute to wonder what kind of painkillers she was on before he noticed that her slight smile was pulling at one of the larger scabs on her bottom lip. Suddenly trembling, he collapsed into the chair placed by the bed.

Head resting almost between his knees, Deadpool shut his eyes and tried to calm down. Right now, the white walls and floor seemed to be making the cold fear inside of him swirl faster and faster. Ash looked and sounded like she was fine, but he couldn't help but think about how easily she could have suffered real and permanent damage. She could have _died_. He took a deep breath, trying to convince the street vendor hot dog he had eaten earlier to stay in his stomach. _**It wasn't great the first time. I really don't want to try tasting it again.**_

"Wade?" Ash asked gently, laying a hand on his back. Deadpool flinched at the contact, breaking his internal monologue. "Are you okay? I know you told me you have a thing about hospitals. If you're too uncomfortable, you don't have to force yourself to be here."

He tried to make a joke, he really did. A joke, a sarcastic comment, a pop culture reference- anything would be better than making Ash even more uncomfortable than she already was, but nothing came out when he opened his mouth. Actually, it was more accurate to say that just one thing came out: "I'm sorry." Deadpool's throat was tight enough that the apology would only come out in a whisper, but he couldn't stop saying it.

* * *

It took a minute for Ash to understand what Deadpool kept repeating over and over, but when she did, her heart gave a weird little stutter. If he was blaming himself now, things were going to get a lot worse. "Wade. Wade, stop it. You don't have anything to be sorry about."

He shook his head, pressing gloved palms more firmly against his eyes. "I should have been there. I'm sorry. I should have been able to protect you. Instead… I'm sorry."

"Don't go all Canadian on me, Wade," Ash warned. "Sorry is nice, but it might be better if we had an actual conversation rather than race to see who can blame themselves first."

Deadpool raised a limp hand. "Dibs."

"Whatever, Wade. If you followed me around all of the time, trying to make sure I was always safe, how do you think I would feel?"

"I think… this is a trick question. Right?"

"Smothered. I would feel like you think I can't take care of myself." Deadpool looked at her, lying in the hospital bed, and lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "Whatever. Point is: there was nothing you could have done about this anyway. Why freak out about something you had no control over?"

"Because you could have died? Was that another trick question?"

"Or I could have gotten hit by a bus or fallen off a ledge and landed wrong. Anyone can get hurt any day by nearly anything. For me, today, it just so happened to be someone beating me up."

Deadpool groaned and put his face back in his hands. "You aren't helping."

Suddenly exasperated, Ash heaved a heavy sigh. "Wade, I'm a bail bonds agent who's worked in some of the most dangerous cities in the world. Do you really think I've never been beaten up before?"

Laughing mirthlessly, Deadpool lifted his head up out of his hands. "Have you?"

Ashton gave a small smile, trying not to aggravate her stitches or darkening black eye with the expression.. "No," she admitted, "but you weren't supposed to call me on it."

In an oddly-hesitant manner, Doctor Banner approached the bed. "Have you two talked over everything?"

"Yeah," Deadpool sighed at the same time as Ash gave a reluctant, "No." He turned to stare at her and Ash looked away uncomfortably. "What the hell does that mean? Is there more to this that you aren't telling me?"

"Well, it's a little tricky to explain," she hedged. "I still don't know all of the details myself."

"Maybe I can help with that," a new voice said as Steve Rogers - AKA Captain America - entered the room.

"Well, well! If it isn't the man who punched Hitler in the dick!" Deadpool said, an only slightly-forced-sounding crazy tone entering his voice as he spoke to the approaching superhero.

Captain Rogers only gave a small smile, one that left his blue eyes serious. "Wade. I have to say that's a new one."

"It shouldn't be a surprise, Chris. I mean, Steve. My bad. Anyway, what do you need to explain? Why I still haven't rated an invitation to an Avengers sleepover?"

"That isn't a real thing. Besides, there is actually a very serious problem we need to discuss."

"They aren't _my_ cameras!" Deadpool claimed instantly. Ash giggled a little at that.

Captain Rogers didn't seem nearly as amused as Ash was. "I don't know what you're talking about and I don't want to. I'm sure by now you've been made aware of the groups targeting superheroes in New York City. These groups use a variety of tactics, from protests to attacks, but their new move has been attacking the family and friends of known superheroes."

Deadpool interrupted. "Is this another attempt to get me to join your lame Assvengers?" He chuckled softly to himself before Ash heard him mutter, "Well, since when have the two of you known anything about the fine art of comedy?"

"No, Tony has said several times that he would dismantle the whole team before letting you join. He also says you have yet to get an invitation from the X-Men, and that's even with Wolverine's unexplainable soft spot for you."

Deadpool squealed. "Really? Wolverine has a soft spot for me? Did he tell you that?"

"Focus, Wade."

"Yeah, yeah, friends and family, blah, blah, blah. What does this have to do with me?"

Ash sat as quietly as possible, trying not to draw any attention to herself, but Deadpool's white eyes still fell on her as he turned. "Oh," he said softly. "Is that what you didn't want to tell me? That you were beat up because you know me?"

She shook her head and reached out a hand to rest on his shoulder."That's not-"

"Wade," Captain Rogers said gently, "it isn't your fault. We've all had people - people who are close to us - get hurt because of this. It has nothing to do with you personally. It's just a side effect of being a superhero."

"I'm not a hero!" Deadpool snapped. Ash let her hand slide off his shoulder as he stood up to start pacing tight circles. "I'm a mercenary. I kill people for money, for fuck's sake. The only reason people think I'm a hero is because I wear a mask like Spider-Man." Ash had never heard him say the hero's name so bitterly. It didn't sound right.

"You may still get paid to kill people - something I'm not going to stop working on you about - but you have changed over the past year or so, Wade." Ash grimaced. It was too late to stop the Captain, but this was probably the worst vein of conversation he could have chosen. Blithely, the hero continued. "I mean, you've started only taking contracts for people who have hurt other people and don't think we haven't noticed the rising number of civilians who said you stepped in when they were in trouble. Face it, Wade. You're becoming more of a hero every day."

Ash could almost hear the internal screaming as Wade began to buckle under the pressure Captain Rogers was putting on him. "So you're saying it is my fault after all. I'm such a fucking standard of model hero behavior that I put my only friend in danger."

"Wade-"

"No one is saying-"

"It's not-"

"Shut up!" Deadpool said sharply. "Cap, Doctor Hulk, I need both of you to back off for a minute and let Ash tell me exactly what happened."

Giving both Avengers a look that suggested they leave her to talk to Deadpool alone, Ash began matter-of-factly, "I was chasing one of my skips. He's been hard to find lately and when I finally got a solid lead on him, I had to take it, even though it was getting really late. I found my guy, but he ran and to catch him, I had to cut down an alleyway in a bad part of town. It was stupid of me, and I got caught by a couple of guys. They asked if I knew you-"

"And you just admitted it?!" Deadpool asked, outraged.

Ash smiled slightly. "Actually, I denied it right away, but they didn't believe me. They did this," she said briefly, sweeping a hand down over her body rather than go too far into details, "and they left. I was trying to figure out a way to a hospital when some guy in a bodysuit found me."

"Some guy in a bodysuit?" Deadpool echoed, looking at the two Avengers in confusion.

Doctor Banner cleared his throat. "I believe he's known as Daredevil, and he usually patrols the areas in and around Hell's Kitchen. He contacted us right away, saying that he's seen a rise of such activity in the area and that it sounds like something we would want to be involved in. He also apologized for not being able to stop the men or capture any of them. He was involved in an alternate struggle at the time."

Deadpool waved away the explanation impatiently. "But that can't be the end of the story."

"Well…" Doctor Banner trailed, obviously searching for something else to add. "We brought her here and have been running tests ever since. There have been some strange numbers on her scans and we don't want her to leave until we know nothing is wrong."

"I don't give a fuck!" Ash gave him a half-glare at the callous words, but didn't say anything as he returned his attention to her. "Did they ask you anything when they were kicking the shit out of you? Was there anything they wanted to know about me? Where I live, what my limits are, what my face looks like, anything?"

"No," Ash said coldly. "Not that I could answer any of those, anyway. They just cared that I knew you, and other than deny that, there wasn't anything I could do."

"There wasn't a point to this, then," he mused, absently pulling down the edges of his mask. "It wasn't an interrogation. It was a torture session. Did they say anything before they left?"

"I don't think so, but I was hardly concentrating on taking down a message for you."

"Sarcasm is your ugliest trait right now, and that includes the stitches."

"Such a charmer," Ash groaned with a roll of her eyes. "But the return to your normal self is a good sign you're getting over all this, right?"

"Nope!" he said cheerfully. "I just know I'm going to hunt down each of the people who are doing this and kill them."

"Don't you mean 'un-alive' them?" she joked awkwardly, but he shook his head.

"No, I am going to kill them." If a masked face could be said to go cold, Deadpool's turned into the Arctic. Even with the throbbing she could feel through the painkillers, Ash felt a little sorry for the people who had beaten her up.

"So," Deadpool said, turning to Captain Rogers. "Human Torch, what kind of leads do we have on these guys?"

"I'm Captain America…" he trailed uncertainly.

"Right. Sorry, different movie. What do we know about the people who did this?"

"Not much, unfortunately. There aren't any witnesses for Miss Akerstrom's case, and none of the others have been attacked in such public locations. Most are blindfolded, taken to some kind of facility, and then turn up somewhere that they can be found. This group doesn't seem to want to kill their victims, just injure them."

"Thank goodness for that," Deadpool said sarcastically. "Aren't there any security cameras where Ash was?"

The nurse laughed, drawing attention to herself for the first time. Ash had a great vantage point, since the woman was currently drawing more blood from her left arm. The nurse was an extremely pretty African-American woman, her long, dark hair pulled back into a serviceable ponytail. She looked surprised at the sudden attention, but didn't seem embarrassed. "Sorry, but you must not be very familiar with Hell's Kitchen if you think there are many security cameras."

Deadpool looked thoughtful. "I'm plenty familiar with Hell's Kitchen, but usually I'm more relieved that there aren't security cameras. It's just extra trouble for me. Kind of weird being on this side of things. What about the vehicle used to kidnap and drop off the victims? Do you have a description of that?"

"No, though we have been looking for any witnesses."

The masked mercenary made a sound of frustration. "Well, you're about as useful as an ejection seat on a helicopter. Do you know anything at all?"

"Only that the group is mostly made up of males, though there are some females mixed in."

"I can vouch for that," Ash said suddenly. "The ones who attacked me were all men, but a woman was the one who cut things off."

"Cut things off? How so?" Captain Rogers asked, eyes intense once more.

Ash shrugged. "It sounded like she was standing at the entrance of the alleyway and she just said, 'Enough.' They all left after that, though not all went toward her. It seemed fairly organized, though. No one hesitated or anything, just started walking off."

"Hmm," the hero mused. "I don't know what it means, but it's more than we had before. I'll have someone add it to the file. Thank you, Miss Akerstrom."

Ash considered herself a fairly strong, independent, and level-headed woman, but as the Captain gently shook her hand and thanked her, she couldn't help melting a little. Trying to talk her cheeks out of reddening too much, she glanced down and said, "It's an honor, Captain."

"Steve," he corrected with a smile. "I insist."

"Yeah, that's enough of that," Deadpool interjected. "Is anyone working on actually hunting down the street teams or are we just in the 'gathering evidence' phase? Because I swear, if Barton is around here playing ping-pong or something ridiculous like that, I will beat him. Easily. I'm really good at ping-pong."

"Actually, Barton is on an assignment," a smooth voice said. Ash glanced over to see Black Widow walk into the room. A smirk curved her full lips. "And I beat him so badly in ping-pong last week that he refuses to play anymore."

"Natasha," Doctor Banner said, voice a little unsteady. Ash watched him with new interest as he grew flustered at the beautiful redhead's presence. "I thought you were on a mission."

"Yeah, I did too," Captain Rogers mused slowly. "Did anything turn up?"

"Yes," she affirmed simply, strolling closer to the bed as each man watched her hips sway. Ash watched, too, envying the woman her easily seductive manner. "We found some of them."

Captain Rogers's eyes snapped up to meet Natasha's coolly professional gaze. "And-?"

"Most were killed in the initial attack and resulting resistance. But we did manage to capture one. He's in the interrogation room now."

"Who?" Deadpool asked insistently.

"No one," the Captain answered.

At the same time, Natasha gestured at Ash. "The men who did this."

Deadpool tuned out Captain America's voice and fixated on Natasha. "Take me to the interrogation room."

"Wade!" Captain Rogers berated. "Shouldn't you stay here with your friend?"

"She's fine," he assured without a backward glance to see if this was true. The mercenary just kept walking toward Natasha with single-minded determination. "Interrogation room."

"Natasha, I order you not to take him to the interrogation room!"

"Sorry, Cap. I'm off the clock." With a sarcastic salute from the redhead, the two were gone.

* * *

**Woo! Alone with the hot spy!**

_Indeed. If there's one situation when you need to seal the deal, Pool, now would be an ideal time. Just focus._

**I don't think he's gonna be focusing on much other than that ass for at least a month.**

_Fair point. He has proven to have a weakness for voluptuous women._

**As long as Green 'n' Angry doesn't kick his ass, he should be fine. This is what all of the training has been about, man.**

_**Will you guys shut it? I'm busy.** _

_Wait. He- He isn't even enjoying the view._

**That's just wasteful.**

Wade was paying so little attention to the Black Widow - a dangerous mistake, in any other situation - that he nearly ran into her when she stopped. Instead, he managed to screech to a halt instead of colliding with the spy as she waited for the elevator. The din from the boxes was deafening.

_Are you insane, man?_

**You're blowing this opportunity! The least you could have done was cop a feel!**

_You could have gotten away with nearly anything and just blamed it on being distraught over your friend!_

_**I**_ _ **am**_ _**distraught over my friend! Ash is lying back there, stuck in a hospital bed because I haven't been screwing up as much as I normally do. She did nothing wrong and still got hurt because she associates with me. Sorry if that's a bit of a mood-killer for me.**_

**Still makes no sense to me.**

_Doesn't sound like Deadpool, if you ask me._

_**DID WE GET TRANSPLANTED INTO SOMEONE ELSE'S HEAD?!** _

"I can only dream," Deadpool muttered.

"I'm sorry?" Romanoff stepped into the elevator, turning to raise a brow at his antics.

"Nothing." When the elevator started moving, he studied the leather-clad spy. "Thanks for telling me what was up. I never thought you liked me much."

"I don't like you," she said simply, but shook her head. "I apologize. It isn't that I dislike you in particular; it's just that your methods are sloppy. I've seen your work, and I can't say I'm impressed."

Deadpool shrugged. He heard that from almost every professional assassin who saw how he worked, but no one could deny that he was effective. "I get that. Still, thanks."

Romanoff was silent for so long that Deadpool didn't think she was going to speak again, but without looking back at him, she admitted, "If it was me - if someone I cared about was in a situation like this - I would want to know. I would want my chance to do something meaningful. And get revenge, of course."

"Duh," Deadpool agreed, somewhat touched by the sentiment. He didn't say so, for obvious reasons. Just because he could regrow limbs didn't mean he particularly enjoyed it.

When the elevator finally stopped, they exited onto a floor that was just as sterile as the hospital section, but much less clean-looking. "Shit, did all of Tony's maids decide that they were gonna walk out?"

"We believe that an interrogation room doesn't need to be clean to be effective," a voice drawled. Deadpool turned to see Nick Fury approaching.

"Of course, Nick Fury emerges from the shadows. The only question is: how long did you stand there watching for us? It must have been a real bitch that we had to wait for the elevator on the hospital floor. Probably added a full two minutes to your dramatic plans."

"Romanoff, is there a reason you brought this man to my interrogation chamber?"

"He deserves to be here."

"I don't think that's a call I asked you to make."

"You've had your best agents in there for an hour and they haven't been able to get anything from this guy. Who better to get the information than a mercenary with no scruples?"

Fury looked Deadpool up and down. For his part, Deadpool outstretched his arms and spun in a slow circle. "See? I'm scruple-less. Not a scruple to be found. Not that I could fit in this suit, anyway."

**So he has no idea what a scruple is, huh?**

_Obviously not._

"Fine," the director said shortly, adjusting his eyepatch. "I don't think you'll have any better luck than we've had so far, Wilson, but you can try your best. Or your worst. I don't particularly care at this point."

"One question, Fury." Deadpool grinned coldly under his mask. "Is there anyone else who needs to talk to this guy, or am I it?"

In Fury's one visible eye, Deadpool could see the flash of understanding as the director saw through to his real question. "No, Wilson, there's no one else. Get what you can from him and I don't care what happens. We'll throw whatever's left into jail."

With that, Fury got back onto the elevator. Romanoff followed him after pointing Deadpool to the room down the hall that contained the prisoner. Cracking his neck in preparation, Deadpool strolled over and pulled the door open almost gently. There was only one man inside, handcuffed to the table. _**Excellent.**_

Unceremoniously, he walked through the door, closing it behind him, and sat down across from the bound man. The man didn't look up, but Deadpool hadn't really expected him to. Instead, he simply began unpacking all the weapons he had at his disposal. By the time he was done, most of the table's surface was covered - he was careful not to put anything within easy reach of the captive - and the man's eyes had widened and were flicking between the variety of weapons and Deadpool's masked face.

"There's no use trying to intimidate me," the man said, voice raspy with disuse. From what Romanoff had said, he hadn't been doing much talking. "You can do whatever you want and I'm not gonna break. I won't tell you anything."

Deadpool ignored him, instead choosing knives at random to pick up and sharpen. "Didn't you hear me?" the man burst out, sounding a little panicked. "I'm not gonna tell you shit!"

"That's nice," Deadpool said absently, focused on sharpening the end of one of his katanas.

"What are you doing?!"

"Getting ready, of course."

"Ready for what? You're the good guys. You won't torture me for information."

"No, I won't." The man relaxed a little bit, but Deadpool grinned up at him crazily, enough of the expression coming through his mask to make the captive uncomfortable again. "The big boss thinks that's what I'm going to do, but I already know you. I've known people like you for a long time, and I don't need to know anything more than that." He shook his head. "I'm not here for information. I'm here for revenge."

The nameless agent of evil scoffed. "This all sounds like a ploy to get information. It's not fooling me."

"Have you ever looked at your fist? I mean, really looked at it?" He paused. "Well, not yours of course, because yours has all of these bruises from beating an innocent girl for no other reason than to be a dick. But looking past that - for now - have you ever really paid attention? So many small parts, all working together to make a perfect punch-mallet."

"I don't know what drugs you've mixed to get this weird, but I'm not telling you anything."

Deadpool went on as though the man hadn't said anything. "And then, they all team up to attach to your arm, then your shoulder, and so on through your entire body." He looked up, wearing that grin again, the one that could only be described as 'maniacal'. "I'm going to cut each one apart. Every knuckle, every joint… Every piece of your body that the man upstairs put together, I'm going to take apart."

The man was visibly sweating now. "I'll- I'll tell you anything you want to know."

"Your first mistake- well, definitely not first, but a pretty major one - was assuming that I want information. I already told you: I don't."

"What do you want, then? Anything. You can have it!"

"I want you." The man's face morphed, showing his awkwardness about the idea, but Deadpool was too furious to enjoy toying with the man's presumed understanding. The boxes were screaming for revenge, after all. "I want you lying on the floor like a dismantled robot. I want body parts and blood everywhere. Then, when I have that, I'll take pictures of what's left of you and send them to every underground merc center, boxing ring, and every nasty little place where they recruit you guys. I'll label that picture so that they'll know you were just a soldier, low man on the totem pole, and this is what happened to you. This is what will happen to anyone who joins my enemies. Why? Because you've started hurting innocent people I care about and that's unac-fucking-ceptable."

He got started. It was gritty, disgusting work, but he worked until the job was done. If nothing else, he was a man of his word.

* * *

"Well, that's every test I can possibly run without illegally accessing databases from other facilities."

"Since when has hacking been somewhere we draw the line, Jarvis?"

Tony Stark probably thought he was too far away for Ash to overhear, but he was sadly mistaken. She had always had excellent hearing. Ash continued to eavesdrop as Jarvis coolly responded:

"Miss Potts has expressly forbidden all illegal activity until she has finished handling the - direct quote - "media shitstorm" from your last romp through things not owned by you."

Ash snickered as Tony said, obviously pouting, "You know she isn't the boss of you, right?"

"Too right, sir. Rather, she is the boss of you."

Tony scoffed. "Fine. Did any of the tests we're capable of performing show anything important?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

"If you don't mind," Ash called over to Iron Man's not-quite alter-ego, "I would really like to be present for this part of the conversation."

Tony awkwardly shuffled into the curtained area around Ash's bed. "Sorry," he muttered. "Jarvis? Care to explain what's going on?"

"Certainly, Miss Akerstrom, we've found a few anomalies during the course of our testing. The most concerning of these anomalies is that you appear to have been injected with an unknown compound during your attack."

Through a ridiculously dry mouth, Ash managed to ask, "Compound? What does it do?"

"That is the crux of the problem: it appears to be dormant at the moment, but we are positive that - given the right stimulus - it will activate and we have no real way of knowing what the effects will be."

Ash was scared. She tried not to be, but this sounded like a perfect time to panic. Oddly, she almost wished that Deadpool could be there to help her face this with a sense of humor. Instead, she folded her arms tightly against her chest. "What can we do about it?"

"I'm afraid there isn't much we can do," Jarvis said, electronic voice filled with regret.

"So, what, I just walk around worried that I'm going to become a literal bomb if someone says the magic word around me?"

"There will probably be a short warning period as the compound begins to fulfill its purpose."

"In other words," Tony interrupted. "You feel weird at all, no matter what you think is causing it, you call us. Here is my personal cell phone number," he handed her a scrap of paper. "Don't sell it on the internet. I'll get really pissed off."

"Um, thanks," Ash said, accepting the offering. "But until I feel the sudden urge to start shooting molten iron from my eyeballs, I'm free to go?"

"Yeah. Thanks for that image." Tony shook his head sharply. "You need a ride anywhere?"

She hesitated, wanting to say no, but knowing that it would be a bad idea to walk anywhere, especially alone, and Deadpool was still MIA. Fortunately, Tony understood. "I have a pouting spy-slash-expert-archer who needs his mind taken off of a bad ping-pong defeat. I'm sure he would be glad to drive you anywhere you need to go."

"Actually, if you'll just give a minute, I'll call a cab."

"Why pay if you don't have to? Cabs are expensive and Barton is cheap."

Ash couldn't help but smile at that. "That's kind of a horrible thing to say about your friend."

"It's cool; I work for tacos." That was a new voice, coming from the entrance to the hospital floor. Ash turned to see a blond man approaching. "When Jarvis told me my expert skills were needed, I didn't think he meant my driving ones, but it works for me. You ready to leave or do you need a few minutes?"

The last question was directed at Ash, who hastily got off the bed and started putting her shoes back on. "Give me just a minute to get my stuff together and I'll be ready."

"No rush," he said unconcernedly. Sure enough, he went on to discuss the finer points of ping-pong with Tony, who professed to be an expert - until Jarvis let slip that the great Iron Man had never won a single game.

The drive to Ash's apartment was predictably awkward - at least, at first. Nearly five minutes into the trip, Clint cleared his throat. "I hope you know that you're pretty special to him. Deadpool. Wade. He doesn't do well showing it, but you're important to him." While they stopped at a red light, he looked askance at her, a beam from a nearby streetlight highlighting his expression. "I mean, I've never heard him talk about anybody the way he does with you. Other than Spider-Man. And Wolverine. And sometimes Steve."

Ash couldn't help but smile at his mention of what she had come to call 'Deadpool's Fanboy Trinity'. "He's pretty important to me, too. I mean, I'll never understand why he does the things he does, and the reputation is a little hard to swallow sometimes…"

"Care for a little advice from someone who dealt with a similar thing?" Ash nodded and Clint rubbed a hand down his scruffy jaw. "Tasha wasn't always the easiest person become friends with. She had scars. Still has them, actually. And you wouldn't believe the things people would say about her… But I stuck it out. I decided that the things she does when I'm around were more important to me than all the things people said she used to do."

Clint cleared his throat awkwardly. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, maybe you should just focus on Wade Wilson, not Deadpool. That might be a good place to start."

"That's a great point and a wonderful place to stop. That's my apartment up there."

After pulling to a smooth stop that Ash's sore muscles deeply appreciated, Clint turned to her. "You've got Tony's number right? And the one for the private floors of Avengers Tower?"

"Yep," Ash said, checking her phone.

Clint pulled it from her hands, typing another number in. "Here's my contact info as well. You'll have to text me though. Calls don't work when you're deaf."

Ash nodded commiseratingly. "I know, right? I feel like I'm constantly turning up the volume on my calls! It's like: I'm either deaf now or I'm going to be from listening to people scream in my ear."

Clint laughed. "Well, in my case, it's a little more literal." Ash pulled back, horrified, and immediately began stuttering out her apologies, but Clint waved them off as he leaned over to close her door. Through the open windows, he called, "Don't let it get awkward. I wouldn't!"

With that, the man was gone and Ash was left alone with her thoughts for the first time in many long hours. Not that she was thinking much, anyway. Instead of going through any mental hysterics, she just went to her apartment, dressed gingerly for bed, and fell asleep long before she could start worrying over the variety of strange things that had happened to her that day.

* * *

Author's Note \- cameo by nurse Claire Temple from the Netflix Marvel shows!


	4. Deadpool: Age of Extinction

Ash groaned loudly as she opened her door and walked into the apartment, face already painted with an expression of deep frustration and disappointment. "What could I possibly have done to warrant two visits in one month?"

Popping out from his 'hiding spot' behind a sparse potted plant, Deadpool sat on the floor pouting. "How do you always know when it's me?"

"Well, there are two major giveaways: One, you're the only one who has ever broken into my home once, let alone multiple times. Two, you always put in the same crappy mixed CD every time you're here. I can hear it from my car."

"Hey!" Deadpool cried, shooting up from the floor. "That CD is filled with classic songs that perfectly sum up the human condition and carry special meaning to me about the place I fill within the vast tangle of life and existence on this planet!"

"It's just _Dirty Deeds_ by ACDC repeated eight times before you put a single track of Cyndi Lauper's _True Colors_." Deadpool was nodding like this was nothing unusual and Ash just shook her head before muttering, "I would rather just listen to _Dirty Deeds_ a ninth time, to be honest."

"How dare you?! Cyndi Lauper is a treasure and so is everything she ever recorded!"

Ash crossed her arms. "Can you name a single other song she did?"

He waved a finger in her face. "You're trying to distract me."

"From the fact that you're a fake fan?" Deadpool pressed fingertips to his chest, pretending to look offended. Ash hid her smile as well as she could. "By the way, she was also responsible for _Time After Time_ and _Girls Just Want To Have Fun_. Also known as the two songs more famous than _True Colors_. Not necessarily any better, but better-known."

Deadpool shook his head. "I don't know when you got like this, but it's a real bummer. You might want to work on that."

"Noted. But first I'm going to work on finding out why you've been practically living here for the past few months. Did you get kicked out of your apartment or something?"

"Me? Never. I don't even know if my building has an owner to kick me out, actually."

Ignoring the mercenary's jokes, Ash kept at it. "So why are you here so often?"

"Has it really been that often?"

"Yes. Why?" He opened his mouth and she held out a hand to stop him. "Don't make me ask again, Wade."

He gave his best casual shrug. "I don't know. I guess… I just figured, you know, I'd be around if you ever needed help with anything?"

"Like opening jars or figuring out how to set up my printer?"

He gave her a less-than-amused look. "You don't want me anywhere near your printer, babe. I was thinking about help that would match a mercenary's skill set."

Ash scoffed. "Come on, the incident was months ago! It's past time to get over it. Besides, if someone is going to attack me, they aren't going to wait until I'm home, hanging around with my friend the unkillable mercenary who wears swords strapped to his back even when _he's sitting on my extremely comfortable sofa that I don't want to have to replace._ "

Abashed, Deadpool jumped up and began stripping weapons from various holsters, but Ash waved him off. "I'm just messing with you, calm down. That sofa's only comfortable from years of being broken down, not because it's anything special."

When he had sat back down, Deadpool made a face at her - she couldn't see it under his mask, but something about the tilt of his head made it clear. "You're such a douche."

"Back at you. I promise, the bad guys aren't going to get me just because you don't drop by four times a week." Ash cleared her throat, feeling suddenly awkward. She and Deadpool didn't discuss what had happened. Admittedly, that was partially by Ash's choice. When she had tried to bring it up in the beginning, he had cut her off, gotten rude, and - once - he even left to avoid the conversation. The furthest she had ever gotten was telling him that Tony still stayed in contact in case something went wrong. On that occasion, Wade had completely shut down until she changed the topic. She never brought it up again, not even to tell him about the mystery injection that still hadn't revealed its purpose.

Oblivious to her internal summation of the past few months, Deadpool - now lounging comfortably on the couch - crossed his arms and pouted. "If I didn't know better, I would say that you're trying not to spend time with me." Before she could answer this, he looked away and grumbled, "Well, you two don't have a choice. Oh, yeah? Trust me, I would rather not be around either of you." Another pause. Ash waited, reminded of times she had stood by while her conversational partner had been on the phone. "Yeah, that's a good point. Ash, why didn't you shoot the guys?"

It was too abrupt a switch for Ash to handle easily and she was forced to sit and blink at the mercenary while her mind raced to catch up. "What are you talking about?"

"You weren't shy trying to shoot me the first time we met, and you're a decent shot. Why didn't you shoot those guys when they attacked you?"

"First off, I am more than a 'decent' shot," Ash replied, nettled. "And since _someone_ pointed out the doubtful legality of my gun, I'm kind of freaked out carrying it. Until I get a licensed gun from the state, I just have my pepper spray. Why are you thinking about that, anyway?"

Deadpool shrugged. "The boxes wanted to know. I guess they've been wondering for a while."

Ash sighed. "It's been four months. Do you think you or the boxes could think about something else for a while?"

"Liiiiike… Spider-Man?! Funny you should mention it. I just happen to have brought a copy of the next Spider-Man movie, the sequel to the one we watched back in St. Louis. Go ahead and play it while I make the popcorn. Don't worry about me missing anything; I know it all by heart."

"Of course you do."

"What was that?" he called from the kitchen.

"Nothing!" she yelled back, reluctantly starting the movie. _Wow, he's even formatted it to have a menu and title sequence…_ This - along with the other DVD he had played at the apartment in St. Louis - was only one of the things about Deadpool that made no sense. Admittedly, it was something that Ash thought about a lot, which made her nervous. Even if Deadpool was a super fan of Spider-Man (she snorted to herself as she thought the word 'if'), it seemed fairly unlikely that he had put together something like that disc. For one thing, it had a professional soundtrack and far-too-polished camera angles. The quality was just too high and it made Ash wonder about all of Deadpool's nonsensical mumblings - though he continued insisting that he had bought the DVDs from 'some guy on the internet who really freaking loves Spider-Man'.

Trying to push the uncomfortable feeling of wondering if Deadpool wasn't as crazy as she thought from her mind, Ash settled back on the couch with a sour look on her face. Objectively, she didn't really care either way about Spider-Man. The web-slinging hero wasn't someone she had ever run into and - while she appreciated the work he tried to do - he still had a lot of bad press. Surely the owner of one of the premier newspapers in New York wouldn't invent headlines about a hero without any proof.

Added to all of this, Ash really hated having to do anything, so being forced to watch movies about Spider-Man was enough to push her feelings about the man from 'neutrality' to 'irritation'. It was with this spark of temper that she glared at Deadpool as he curled up next to her on the sofa.

"What?" he asked defensively, noticing her expression. "Are you mad that I ate most of the popcorn already? Because I can make more. There's more in your cabinet."

With a long-suffering tone in her voice, she said, "I know you ate most of the popcorn, Deadpool. I don't know if you've realized this, but you make a lot of noise when you're shoveling it into your mouth. The fact that you think I didn't notice makes me wonder if you doubt I can hear. But beyond that, why are we watching this? You know how I feel about Spider-Man."

"Yeah, but maybe he'll grow on you! I mean, both of you love me, so you must have at least a little bit in common." Ash rolled her eyes and Deadpool sighed. "Fine. Watching Spider-Man makes me feel more brave."

"Why do you need to be brave?" Ash asked, furrowing her brows. "If you need help fighting or anything, I can back you up. I mean, I won't help you with merc work, but if someone's after you, let me know and we'll take care of it."

"Whoa! Easy, killer. No one is trying to bump me off, but there is something I need to talk to you about, and it's not gonna be a fun conversation."

"I already know what you're going to say," Ash assured him. "I've known for over a long time now."

"Known… What?"

"About what you did to that guy. Back in Avengers Tower on the night I was there? I know you-" Ash had to stop and take a gulp of air. "-tortured him. And then killed him pretty brutally. Then apparently sent out pictures of it."

"Oh." Deadpool stared down at his gloved hands. "Yes, I did that. It isn't what I wanted to talk to you about, but since we're on the subject, how did you find out?"

Instead of answering, Ash got up from the couch and walked over to the coat rack where she had hung her work briefcase. Behind her, Wade let out a nervous laugh. "Are you that mad that you can't even tell me?"

"No, I just can do better than that. I can show you."

* * *

Deadpool did his best to stay sitting on the couch rather than get up to pace nervously. His stomach was twisting and yet he still felt the urge to eat some of the popcorn sitting in the bowl on his lap. Probably just to have something to do with his hands, but it would also require lifting up his mask and Deadpool wasn't willing to do that… at least, not yet.

_**Holy hell, how long does it take to get something out of a briefcase?** _

_You hope she's just getting something out of her briefcase._

_**What else would she be doing?** _

**You know, calling the cops.**

_Or the Avengers._

**Anyone, really, to come help her.**

_It's possible she's decided that she doesn't feel safe in an apartment with someone like you._

_**Nah, she says she's known about this for a while. Why would she freak out now if she's already over it?** _

**You think she's over it.**

_You hope._

**But still… Why else would she bring it up?**

_As soon as you said you needed to talk to her about something, her mind immediately jumped to your torture of that man._

**Doesn't sound like someone who's 'over it' to me.**

_**I don't like when you two get along**_ , Deadpool grumbled mentally.

_Think positively: maybe she's looking for her unregistered gun so she can just shoot you._

**Yeah, not like you haven't been shot before. You'll play dead, let her hide your 'body' and then you can drag your newly-healed ass to the next sucker dumb enough to get sucked into your mess.**

_**Thanks, guys. Your support means so much… I think I'm crying a little.** _

_Not out of character, sadly._

"Found it," Ash called, joining him on the couch as she handed him a beaten-up photo.

Idly, Deadpool looked it over. The photograph was creased and crumpled, the corners ripped and bent. While he was busy looking at a smudged thumbprint on the back, the boxes started right back up again.

**What is he doing?**

_I think the correct term is 'being a coward'._

**That's what I thought.**

_**I'm not being a coward! I'm just… Using my superior deductive skills to figure out if this picture got to looking this way because it circulated the underground, or if Ash has been looking at it that much.** _

**Coward.**

_Anyone else would take pride in their work, but you seem very determined not to look at what you did._

**That's how he always is. Never likes looking back. It makes him sick.**

_**It does not! It's just that I already won by un-aliving the guy. Looking back at a picture of it feels kinda braggy.** _

_Coward._

"-adpool? Wade? Is everything okay?"

He shook his head sharply, pulling his focus back to Ash's living room and the picture he held. Deadpool forced a smile at his friend. "Yeah, I'm fine." Dispassionately, he flipped the picture over and stared down at the familiar sight.

Deadpool never forgot a torture session. Killing people didn't bother him - obviously - but torture was something else entirely. When he had found about what that piece of shit had done to Ash, his blood had boiled. The rage had built up to the point that he couldn't focus on anything but making the guy suffer. Strangely enough, things had changed once he started working on the guy. Instead of slicing pieces off of the man and throwing them around the room, he had set them up in a neat, organized order. The different chunks of the phalanges were all organized, starting from the smallest bones - fingernails up, of course - and ranged up to the larger. Deadpool had stopped when the man passed out the fourth time, but only because he had come too close to bleeding out. The mercenary knew his victim wasn't waking up again. He had taken a picture of the carnage, labeled it like he said he would, and sent copies out all over the city.

Studying the photo now, Deadpool felt an uncomfortable sinking feeling. He had suspected before, but now he knew for sure: He had lost control, and lost it big-time. If someone had decided to come through the door while he had been working, there would have been no guarantee that he wouldn't have un-alived them, too. For the hours he had been in that room, there had been no one home. After he left the soiled room, it had taken almost a full day for the boxes to start speaking again. He knew better than to believe it was a good thing. He had almost lost himself. Right now, he was a piece of shit, but at least he was a piece of shit with a conscience. If he turned into the monster he looked like… Deadpool snorted. _**That's all the world needs: another soulless, bloodthirsty assclown wandering the street trying to hurt someone.**_

_You aren't far from that now._

**Yeah. There have been a couple nights in the past month where you thought those exact words as you wandered the street trying to hurt someone.**

_**But I try to find people who deserve to be hurt.** _

**What if Ash deserved to be hurt?**

_**Don't even go there.** _

_Why not? What do you really know about this girl?_

_**Do you not remember the full background check we ran? Plus, we used our awesome detective skills to do some digging and it turned up nothing.** _

**Our detective skills could use a serious overhaul.**

_If I remember correctly, those same detective skills are why we know Ash in the first place._

_**You're welcome.** _

**He just assumes it's a good thing.**

_**Hey! Ash has never done anything to make me not trust her.** _

_Remind me: how well has 'innocent until proven guilty' worked for you in the past?_

Ignoring the admittedly-valid point, Deadpool tore his gaze from the picture in his hand. Once again, Ash was talking and he had totally missed the beginning of it. "-eep zoning out. Are you sure everything is okay?"

Deadpool shook himself and half-grinned at his friend. "You saw this picture. Aren't I the one who should be asking if _you're_ okay?"

Ash shrugged, but he couldn't help noticing that she was twisting her hands together nervously. "I've had some time to get used to it. Like I said, I found the picture a little over a month ago and I've since studied it."

"St- Studied it?" Deadpool asked, more than a little horrified. "And you said before that you found it. Found it how?"

"Well, I found one of my marks and escorted him to the police station. It took a little longer than usual to get the verification paperwork, so I waited by the inprocessing desk. As they were confiscating and taking inventory of everything he had on his person, they found this." Gently, she pulled the photo from Deadpool's hand and laid it face-down on the table. "There was a pretty major freakout, but I managed to convince them it was a bad photoshop job." He looked at her strangely and Ash waved a hand. "I just talked about the shadows and how I had seen something like this in a horror movie and it was probably just a cut-and-paste job."

Deadpool wasn't a huge fan of the picture being compared to a horror movie, but he understood the point she was trying to make. Also, he appreciated Ash keeping the police off of his back, but before he could express this, she continued her explanation.

"I took the picture, obviously. I knew it wasn't shopped and I knew the setting looked familiar. Past that, it didn't take long to narrow down the options and realize this was Avengers Tower and that this was in one of the interrogation rooms. That meant it had to have been you who did this."

"So do you hate me?" The question had escaped before he had a chance to hold it back.

"Hate you?" Ash seemed dumbfounded, probably by the half-desperate bluntness of the question. "Of course I don't hate you! Why would I have done… pretty much anything I've done lately if I hated you?"

"I dunno. Draw me in and make my humiliation and isolation that much sweeter for the anticipation?"

"That sounded pretty supervillain-ey, even for a guy who acknowledges his tendency to be on the gray side of the hero spectrum. But, no. I don't hate you. I might be a little concerned for you, maybe have some questions, but I definitely don't hate you."

"Why not?"

Ash narrowed her eyes. "Do you want me to hate you?"

"No, but… you should. Torture shouldn't be something you're just okay with. Especially not a civilian like you."

"So you're telling me it's okay for you to torture a man because he works with the people who attacked me, but for me not to be bothered by the photograph _you_ took of the guy _you_ tortured to death is unacceptable?"

"Kina but not really. We're just two different people. You're the upstanding citizen and I'm the morally-ambivalent mercenary who will do anything for a paycheck."

"Wade," she sighed. "I've told you: You're so much more than that."

"And I've asked you not to call me Wade. When I'm in this suit, I'm Deadpool; there is no Wade."

"Which means there's no Wade at all for me," Ash summarized. "You never take off the mask around me, so you're always - and will always be - Deadpool and only Deadpool."

"Ash, we've talked about this before: I'm-"

"'Hideously scarred'," she finished with him. "I know, you've told me."

"It's the truth!" he defended, not entirely sure what they were fighting about, but Deadpool never walked away from a fight. Especially when he didn't know what it was about.

"Well, if you think your scars are hideous, I shudder to think what your opinion on my face is," she raged, gesturing to the scar tracing over the edge of her jaw.

"It's not even close to the same thing and you know it!"

"How would I know it?! You've never taken off your mask around me, which is your choice, but you even make me turn around when you have to lift it to eat. That's ridiculous, Wade!"

"I told you, I'm not-"

"You're not Wade!" she finished with him again. "Believe me, I remember! Why are you trying to change the subject?"

"Because I don't want to take my mask off around you! Did you ever think that I don't know you that well? Maybe I don't trust you!"

"You don't trust me?! I don't know what I could have done to make you _not_ trust me. After all, I'm not the one who goes around breaking into people's apartments all the time…"

"I-" he sighed frustratedly. "I don't trust you not to leave when you see my face. I don't want you to run away and stop being my friend because I'm disgusting."

"You-" Ash stopped abruptly, face going white. "Hang on, I need to do something. I'll be right back. This isn't over." Face still not gaining any of the color it had lost, Ash got up and rushed out of the room.

Deadpool stared after her. _**Well, that was weird.**_

**Dude, this whole thing has been weird.**

_I must agree. Where did that argument come from?_

_**I have no idea. She just got mad and I don't know why.** _

_To be fair, you did say you didn't trust her._

**Yeah, that wasn't the smartest thing you could have said.**

_**You guys are the ones who said I shouldn't trust her!** _

**That doesn't mean, 'Tell her that to her face.'**

_It could be seen as a fairly offensive insinuation. Not a wise thing to say._

_**Fuck you guys.** _

* * *

Ash crouched in the dark bathroom, both hands clutching desperately at her forehead. _Don't throw up, don't throw up, don't throw up… What is wrong with me?_

Over the past few months, Ash had noticed something odd: anytime Deadpool spent any length of time with her, she ended up with a pounding headache. It had been difficult to track down the connection, but once she realized what was going on, it started to worry Ash. Last time he had visited, he had been in her apartment for nearly five hours. She had developed such a bad migraine that she had vomited after he left.

These episodes didn't seem to be tied to sound, either. Once, she had dared Deadpool not to speak in anything above a whisper for an hour. He had succeeded - mostly - but it hadn't made a difference. The throbbing in her head had just gotten worse and worse.

She could hear Deadpool mumbling to himself in the living room and it just got to be too much. Ash crawl-stumbled over to the toilet as quickly as she could, but still only just made it before she vomited. Her head pounded and waves of nausea rolled through her entire body. A chilling thought occurred to her and Ash pulled out her phone, keying up a text to Jarvis between heaves.

_I have a headache so intense, I've thrown up twice. Should I be concerned?_

Only a span of moments passed before she got a reply. _Please come in immediately, Miss Akerstrom. I've dispatched a car to your apartment. It should arrive within ten minutes._

In the sudden silence of her apartment, Ash began to feel minutely better - or, at least, she stopped actively throwing up. She managed to pull herself upright and over to the sink, rinsing out her mouth and splashing cool water on her face. Before she left the bathroom, she moved to flush away the evidence of her sickness, but paused. The vomit was black.

Trying to force down the panic, Ash unlocked the door and shuffled out into the living room. "Listen, Wade- I mean, Deadpool - I have to… What are you doing?"

Deadpool was standing in the middle of the living room, his posture oddly tense. "I'm going to do something that I should have done months ago."

"That doesn't really answer my question…" Ash trailed uncertainly.

Deadpool took a deep breath and lifted his hands to his neck. Ash could only watch, intensely curious, as he plucked at the fabric there. His fingers sought out the edge of his mask and brought it upward slightly. For the first time, Ash caught a flash of his skin. It wasn't enough to see details, but the novelty was slightly less remarkable because a sharp sting from her headache seemed to make its way down to her chest. She moved uncomfortably.

"Deadpool-" she started, but he interrupted her, voice tight with nerves even as he cracked a joke.

"Yeah, enjoy using that name while you still can. You're about to have to call me Wade."

It took a moment for that to sink in. _Is he saying what- Is he about to show me his face? Come on head, you're just going to have to make it. I can't miss this!_ The pain flashed more intense as she thought about finally seeing her friend's face. At first, she was tempted to ignore it, but the way it arced down into her stomach was enough to give her pause. _This shouldn't be happening._

"Deadpool, you really don't-"

"Don't tell me I don't have to," he warned. "Because I do. You've been my friend longer than anyone else ever has and you deserve to be trusted with anything you want."

"That isn't true!" she protested, but he just shook his head.

"It's something I want to do. I feel like we're close enough, and if you reject me, that's up to you. I don't want to feel like I'm tricking you into being my friend. I want you to _want_ to be my friend." He gave a stilted laugh and began to sing Cheap Trick's ' _I Want You To Want Me'_ in a shaky, breathy voice as he bobbed back and forth in a strip-tease-esque dance. It was awkward and hilarious and so terribly Deadpool that Ash couldn't help but smile, even while her head throbbed like it was trying to split open.

She started to protest one yet again, but fell silent at the sight of his neck. The skin he was uncovering was rough and covered in angry red marks set against a background of healing purple scars and faded white lines. Even after having been prepared by Wade's warnings on his appearance, Ash was taken aback. She hadn't expected the scarring to look so… fresh.

As the mask crept up over his chin, she winced in sympathy. The scarring was continued, as promised, but she hadn't been ready to see his mouth. His lips were so dry that they looked raw, though she took a strange fascination in the fact that his teeth were so white and even. He could be an ad for an orthodontist. At least, his smile could. Well, if it had a little less crazy behind it.

The mask was up almost over his nose now. The newly-exposed skin was tight, almost seeming stretched in appearance. As she studied him, Wade's song faltered and a muscle in his cheek twitched. His eyes burned at her. Distantly, she wondered what color they would be.

Abruptly, he fell silent and his jaw clenched. _Poor guy. He really think I'll run screaming when I see his face. How many people have in the past? People he cares about?_ It wasn't a new train of thought for her, though it was certainly a more potent one with the severity of Wade's scarring right in front of her. Guiltily, she ran back through all the times he had hidden his face from her, all the times he shied away when he had to lift the mask even a few inches so he could eat. And now, he was showing her his face. Not because he wanted to, or thought it was time, but because he felt guilty and thought he owed it to her. _He's such a great guy._

Now that she looked at his expression rather than his scarring, she could see that he was nervous to the point of being actually scared. In fact, his eyes hadn't left her face since the moment he had touched the edge of the mask resting against his neck. Guilt clenched her stomach tightly even as warmth flooded her heart. Somehow, Wade Wilson - AKA: Deadpool - had become her friend after all, and she couldn't make him do this.

With that, Ash started to tell him that he was off the hook, but he yanked the mask up, revealing more of his face, including a large section of his nose. The pressure in her head moved to her chest and Ash suddenly felt a sharp _snap!_ , followed by a searing pain. She gaped, clutching at her heart, in far too much pain to make noise.

Fortunately, Wade was watching her closely enough to see her sudden movement and stopped pulling up his mask. "Ash?" he asked hesitantly, and even his soft voice made her heart pound in a way that felt like it couldn't possibly last long before collapsing.

Ash staggered a bit and he rushed toward her, but she held out a hand to ward him off. Just having him this close was making her vision start to flicker. Ash wasn't sure what would happen if he actually touched her. She was sure it wouldn't end well. Wade drew back, even as he frowned in confusion.

"Ash? I don't know what's going on. Are you okay?"

The sound of his voice was almost enough to send Ash reeling again, but she managed to stay upright and begin staggering toward the door. Wade moved again as though to steady her and Ash dodged as well as she could. "I have to go, Wa- Deadpool."

"Ash…"

"I have to leave." She hobbled through the door as quickly as she could, trying not to take a last look at Wade as he stood alone and confused in her apartment. She failed.

It took until she was in Stark's car driving away from the apartment before her vision returned completely, her limbs stopped trembling, and she could take a full breath. The rest of the drive was spent trying to forget the forlorn look on Wade's partially-exposed face as she left him behind. Ash would have liked to say that the ache in her chest was due to the recent strain on her heart, but deep down, she knew better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may be wondering about my descriptions of Deadpool's skin. I've noticed a lot of fics tend to describe him as looking like a burn victim and then going on to say how horrifying he is. One of my very favorite people in the world happens to have been badly burned as a small child and bears a lot of scars from the experience. She is a lovely person with a gorgeous personality, but she is very insecure about her appearance. I promised myself that if I ever wrote a DP fic, I would avoid describing him in a way that would make someone with a similar appearance to my friend uncomfortable. Thank you for your understanding.


	5. Mercenaries of New York: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Ash was walking down an unfamiliar street, sadly not a new experience in her particular line of work. The night air was thick with humidity and the potential for crime. The streetlights - when there were any - seemed abnormally far apart, casting their pools of yellow light onto the ground precisely below; none spilled out to illuminate the surrounding areas. The only good thing about being out right now was that it gave a person time to think, at least when they felt secure enough not to be wholly focused on the potential for danger.

It had been a full six months since Ash had been rushed to the Avengers Tower. Doctor Banner, Tony Stark, and Jarvis had worked frantically to save her life. The effects of the injection had been discovered: it was literally rotting her body from the inside. From later analysis, Doctor Banner said it was keyed to react negatively to the specific radiation used to create Deadpool's mutation. When she was in the immediate area for more than a short time, the injection turned to a form of acid that attacked major organs through the bloodstream. As for why everything seemed to reach a crisis point on the night Wade chose to reveal his face, Jarvis hypothesized that it had something to do with the increased heartbeat and adrenaline caused by her friend taking such a huge step. In any case, the cause of her apparent health issue was considered to be less important than the immediate effects.

By the time the medical team had been able to figure out what was going on, the injection had reverted back to its non-harmful state, but the damage had already been done. Ash was dying, suffering from mass organ failure. There was one way to reverse the damage: a gel that would stop the rotting process and speed her body's natural healing processes. (In all honesty, the medicine was a serum with a very long scientific name, but that term had certain… _connotations_ in this group.) The only reason for hesitation on the part of the doctors was this gel's tendency to produce some rather odd side effects. In the end, Ash had set all of the advice and opinions aside and made the decision to ingest the gel. It was a bit of a gamble, but she wanted to live and any potential side effects seemed like a fair trade.

She had been kept under observation on the hospital floor of Avengers Tower for nearly a month. It had taken almost two full weeks to repair the organ damage, which seemed to have been centered in Ash's heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and - oddly - appendix. The remaining time was spent waiting for any effects from the gel, but there didn't seem to be any. She was released with orders to take it easy and to call if anything out of the ordinary happened.

Of course, by this point, Ash was dying to go back to being productive. Most of her skip cases had been given away during her lengthy hospital stay - though Tony had easily provided some very official-looking documents to remove any repercussions for her absence - but she had picked up a few easy jobs when she came back. They were mostly repeat offenders, non-violent people who meant well, but missed court dates because they were too drunk to remember when they were.

It was during one of these cases that Ash had finally discovered the side effects of the gel. She was trying to persuade a particularly difficult drunk that he needed to accompany her to the police station, but it wasn't going well. He was a stubborn older man, and as he said, he knew all of the tricks. Eventually, she resorted to guilting the skip into coming with her. It didn't seem like it was going to work (just like it hadn't worked the last few times she had tried), but suddenly, it was like she could see inside the man. Not in an x-ray type of way; it was more that she could visually see the way he felt, the exact breakdown of emotions working together to determine his actions.

Each pinpoint of light - smaller or larger, depending on how strongly he felt it - was like a tangible thing for Ash, almost as though she could reach out and touch it. She knew from their weight in her mind which emotions were which, and how they could work together to influence his behavior. As soon as she could accept that this was truly happening, it was a simple matter of manipulating his guilt and regret to be magnified and his pride to decrease. He was following her willingly in a matter of minutes.

Ash kept her cool for the length of time required to get him to the police station and collect her voucher, then she made an immediate beeline for Avengers Tower. After making the trip along the now-familiar path, she went to the medical floor, but the only one should could find was Hawkeye. He was sulking as he recovered from having surgery to get an arrow removed from his own shoulder - he refused to give her any other details - but insisted on being told what was wrong while Jarvis got in contact with Tony Stark and Doctor Banner. Fortunately, they were both in the building and Ash was forced to repeat her trick several times while Jarvis completed a variety of scans before they admitted that the process didn't seem to be causing her or her target - this case, Hawkeye - any kind of harm. After forcing her to promise that she wouldn't do anything stupid with her newfound abilities, Ash was sent on her way.

As her skill level grew and developed further, Ash decided to take this promise as advice and subsequently decided not to follow it. She mostly tested her empathic abilities on skips - the logic being that they already didn't like her and thus had plenty of emotions rolling freely - but she wasn't afraid to help prevent a crime or death if she happened to come across one while working in the dangerous city. At the end of her first month having a 'superpower', Ash had stopped two armed robberies and a drug deal turned violent and she decided that it was time to get serious about it.

Unfortunately, Ash didn't quite have the costume-making skills of other amateur heroes and ended up wandering New York in an outfit that - while it hid her identity - was admittedly shabby-looking. The costume was designed almost exclusively to hide any identifying features. Practicality wasn't really a factor since she did most of her fighting with her words. A large, formless hoodie kept her from being too noticeable while a pair of baggy sweatpants hid her legs - though now that summer was approaching, she was looking for a more breathable option. She wore simple tennis shoes - always good if one was forced to run - and kept her hair braided as tightly as she could. If she looked androgynous, so much the better. Lastly, but most importantly, she wore a mask. It wasn't much of one, but it covered her eyes and nose while leaving her mouth free. It looked a little bit like Batman's mask, but since she couldn't find anything better, Ash refused to waste much time thinking about it.

This hero business was much easier said than done, as she quickly discovered. Ash had no convenient way of getting around, nor was there a defined way of knowing when or where there was going to be violence, so most of her early days of crime-fighting were spent running from place to place, chasing rumors, and listening to police scanners. After arriving behind - and nearly getting arrested by - the police for the umpteenth time, Ash finally gave in and decided to patrol the old-fashioned way: by walking through the city and seeing what she could find. To her shock, this method worked oddly well. As long as she avoided Hell's Kitchen and all of the sections patrolled by the Avengers, no one bothered her and she found plenty going on.

It became quickly apparent that someone getting attacked had a feeling, a sort of emotional 'scent' made up of anger, fear, and adrenaline-fueled stress. When Ash felt that particular combination, she knew that she was needed and moved as quickly as possible in that direction. Of course, one drawback of her power was that she had no idea what she was about to walk into. Until she could physically see the situation, she didn't have any real way of knowing what was going on. She learned to be quick on her feet after having to dodge bullets on more than one occasion.

Once again, Ash felt the combination growing - though with a touch more frustration than usual - and moved around cautiously until she had an idea of which direction the attack was taking place. She had a range of several blocks, even more when the 'scent' was strong, but this one was close and it must have just begun. She would have noticed those emotions before if someone had been in the process of being attacked, especially someone so close.

Less than a minute later, Ash stood just outside the mouth of an alley, crouched slightly to make herself an even less-likely target, and peeked around the corner of the brick building she was hiding behind. Fortunately for her, this was nearly a textbook-perfect robbing (assuming such a textbook existed). The would-be robber stood with his back perfectly facing the mouth of the alley while his victim stood with his back against the brick of the dead end. A small, sharp knife was held up threateningly toward the man being robbed, but as Ash approached as silently as she could, she could see the blade jolting unsteadily in the man's trembling hand. With a start, she realized that the majority of the fear she could feel was radiating from the robber himself, not his victim, but Ash quickly shook off this realization and the questions it brought up. For the current moment, the only thing that really mattered was stopping a potential tragedy.

Silently cursing herself for choosing to do things like this, Ash strode up behind the mugger as silently as she could before advising confidingly, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Despite his oddly backwards emotions, the mugger responded to her warning as most others would: by putting himself in the best possible place to get away. He jolted forward, resting the shining blade of the knife against the skin of the other man's exposed throat. At the same moment, his free hand seized the victim's upper arm and pulled, bringing the victim's body around for use as a shield.

The mugger had his face covered, but Ash could see his eyes glaring at her over his victim's shoulder. "What the- Who the fuck are you supposed to be? Everyone thinks they're some kind of hero nowadays. Whatever. Back off, lady, unless you wanna be the Good Samaritan who gets this guy killed." Immediately, Ash raised both hands innocently and took several steps back, careful to make them smaller steps. Her powers often decreased with distance and she didn't want to take the chance that a few feet could mess up this rescue attempt.

Apparently, she had gone far enough, because the mugger began to speak once more, seeming to make a conscious decision to speak in as low a pitch as possible, likely trying to sound more formidable. "Now, he's gonna walk me to the front of this alley, then he's gonna stand in your way until I've gotten far enough away from this place so that you won't catch me, no matter how much you wanna be a superhero. Get it?"

Slowly, Ash shook her head, letting her voice go softly sorrowful. "Oh, Samuel. What would Patrice think?" Normally, her abilities gave her a read on emotions and nothing more, but Samuel had been projecting such a tremendous amount of fear and pain that she had been able to pick up additional information.

The mugger, Samuel, whirled around, the knife at his victim's throat putting a small nick in his neck. "Who the fuck are you? How did you know my name, you freak?"

Not missing Samuel's avoidance of her mentioning Patrice, Ash went on undeterred. "Does that really matter?" she asked, voice comforting as she could make it while still sounding sad. "We both know that she didn't want this for you, Samuel. She wanted something more. She wanted you to be a new man, someone she knew you could become."

"It's too late, you damn psychic freak. Isn't it?" he snapped, voice as bitter as his eyes. "She's gone and she's never coming back."

"Is she gone? Is she really?" The mugger's eyes went bright with a feverish hope and Ash carefully diverted the path of the conversation, taking care to start growing the seeds of doubt and regret she could sense inside of the man. "She may be gone from this world," she started, watching most of the life die from Samuel's eyes, but continued on smoothly, "but she'll never truly be gone from you. You can still see her when you close your eyes, can't you?"

The hand holding the knife to the quietly-seething victim's throat began to falter. Even from her spot, positioned a fair distance away, Ash could see that Samuel was swallowing convusively and he was blinking rather more often than a person normally would.

Sensing his regretful emotions surging, Ash continued on undeterred. "The way she smiled when you helped Phil move out of his mom's house, the way she frowned when you told Rand he should start dealing, the way her eyes got soft the first time you told her that you loved her…" Taking a chance, Ash reached out and patted him on the shoulder. He stiffened at first, then relaxed slightly into the comforting touch. "Samuel, she'll never be gone from you. She's there, helping you work on yourself because - deep down - you know that the man she wanted you to be is the man you want to be, too."

"I do," he agreed. "But how can I get there? It seems impossible. I'll never be anything other than this. I'll never be better than this."

"Well, the first step is an easy one," Ash assured. "Put the knife away and let this gentleman go on his way unharmed. You know it's what Patrice would have wanted." Samuel stood motionless for a moment and she decided to tread carefully. "There is nothing to be gained by stealing from this man. It would only be the first step down a road you don't want to be on." He still didn't move and Ash went in for the final shot. "Samuel, Patrice believed you were better than this. Don't make her a liar."

That seemed to do it. Samuel pulled the blade away from his victim's throat and allowed the man to jog steadily out of the alleyway, casting a glare over his shoulder as he made his way to safety. Ash turned to watch him leave, not turning back to Samuel until the sound of the near-victim's footsteps had faded away completely.

When he was completely gone, Ash looked back to Samuel, who was still facing the back wall of the alleyway. Something about his posture was off and she asked gently, "Samuel? What's going on?"

His voice, when it came, was weak and utterly defeated. "I can't do this anymore. Patrice… She was the one good thing in my life. Since she's been gone, I just go from fuck-up to fuck-up and there's no way to stop it. I couldn't even rob a man right. I can't… It's too much. I'm done."

Alarmed, Ash darted around to see Samuel pressing the knife ever more deeply into his own throat. She seized his arm, fully knowing that she couldn't hold him off for long, if at all. "Samuel, this isn't the way to do things! I know you miss Patrice, but there's always hope. You can change, do better." Her words didn't seem to be reaching him and she had to search for positive feelings to increase even as she spoke. "What if things were the other way around? What if you had been the one who died and not her? Would you have wanted her to do something like this, just because she missed you and didn't think she could go on without you?" This proved to be the wrong thing to say. Samuel's emotions spiraled down into a pool of desperation and revulsion, and though Ash tried to apply these feelings toward the idea of himself committing suicide, there was little she could do.

"Patrice never would have let herself get to this point. She was everything good and pure in the world, and without her, I'm just one more dipshit wandering around, trying to make things work to make his life a little better."

"Samuel, I didn't know Patrice. I never met her and I can't tell you exactly how she would react, but I can tell from the memories you have of her that she would be just as upset at the idea of you dying for her as you are about her dying for you." The knife lifted a little further away from his throat and Ash went on. "You have every chance of making your life better at this point. There's always hope of changing, but all of that goes away the moment you take yourself out of the equation."

"But… How do I move on from here?" Samuel's voice was so soft that she could barely hear him. "Everything was riding on this."

"Everything was riding on what?" Ash asked. "What is 'everything'?" In a flash of emotions and pictures, she realized the problem: Samuel wasn't alone in the world.

"Justine," he whispered. "I can't support her. I just don't have the money. If I can't get a lot of it and soon, she'll be taken away from me. No one else can take care of her either, and I can't let my daughter be put into the system. I just can't."

Ash's heart ached for the man. The foster system - as well-intended as most involved factions were - was a difficult place to be for all involved. Once a child was in, it was difficult to be taken back out, but in situations like this, it was honestly the better option. It was with this thought - and the hope of not getting punched in the face - that she decided to give the tough advice he needed to hear.

"You have to let her go into the system. Take the time to do things the right way instead of taking this shortcut-"

"I can't," Samuel said flatly. "I can't fail them again. I don't have time to do anything other than what I'm doing now."

"Samuel, I know this is a terrible choice. There's no upside, no good answer, but you have to try to do what's right. Think about Justine. I'm sure she would rather have a father who's trying his best and working to get her back instead of one who is in jail for robbing people. Not to mention, you would almost certainly be caught if you try to take this easy way out. Having a criminal record would definitely make it harder - if not impossible - to get custody of Justine back."

He remained silent, but Ash could feel his emotions shift from despair and helpless rage to an unwavering determination. Pulling his mask up so that she could see his earnest expression, Samuel asked, "What do I need to do?"

Ash pulled a broken pencil from a nearby garbage heap and began scrawling on the back of an old receipt that had fluttered down the alley. "Here is the number of my favorite vocational training facility and the name of their best career counselor. I've worked with them a lot and they're wonderful. They can help you get a decent job, something to begin saving up again with. They also have a financial services department who can help you with budgeting and paying off debts. And, of course, their education department can help if you decide you want to go back to school. There are plenty of grants and scholarships available, depending on what you want to go for."

She handed the receipt to Samuel and watched him fold it carefully before placing it in a secure pocket, but the best reaction was the shimmering wonder of hope unfurling inside him. "This isn't the answer to all of your problems, of course, but it'll give you a place to start."

"So you're, what, some kind of career counselor-slash-superhero-slash-therapist?" Samuel asked it with a grin, eyes sparkling. She grinned back, having sensed his honest gratitude for her help.

"Nah, nothing like that. I'm just a 'damn psychic freak' who likes to help out where she can." Ash was just joking, but worried a bit when she could feel the sting of guilt and shame flash through Samuel's emotional state.

"I guess I was wrong," Samuel admitted, looking over at her with an odd expression.

"About what, exactly?"

"You really are some kind of hero."

Ash couldn't help but chuckle. "I'm pretty sure you were right the first time, but that does bring up an important point: you're being pretty heroic right now. You made a tough choice to do what's right, to work hard for the people you care about. That's what a hero is."

Samuel groaned. "And there's the stereotypical hero cheesiness. Can we leave before you say something about great power and great responsibility?"

Playfully elbowing the man, Ash began walking toward the mouth of the alleyway as Samuel followed, the two moving in a comfortable silence. It was in that silence that something struck Ash as being wrong. It wasn't anything coming through her recently-acquired abilities, but a note of wrongness picked up from years as a bounty hunter. Carefully, she extended an arm back, stopping Samuel as she halted as well. With a subtle move, Ash cut off his question and motioned for him to stay quiet. They weren't alone.

She began inching forward, crouching to make herself less of a target since the alley provided very little in the way of cover. Despite consciously extending her abilities to the limit of their range, Ash still wasn't picking up any emotions that could hint at who or what was nearby.

The first clue she came across was a foot, well-shod in expensive Italian leather. Ash assumed it was attached to a leg, but only the foot protruded out from the corner to the right and extended across the mouth of the alley. Watching carefully for any approaching threats, Ash moved to get a better look at the owner of the foot and a frown soon crossed her covered face. It was Samuel's intended victim. There was a single, neat slice bisecting his throat, and his blood-covered body looked to be lying where it had landed after death, complete with a fairly-large pool of blood surrounding him. Ever-suspicious, Ash wasn't foolish enough to believe that this was the jarring note she had felt. There was something else going on.

A scuffing noise behind her made Ash whip back to face the alleyway, but it was only Samuel shuffling up to stand closer to her. "What's going on?"

Barely stifling the urge to hit him, Ash grabbed Samuel's arm and pulled him further down the alley once more. When she was a little more confident that they were out of anyone's earshot, she told him what had happened, careful not to raise her voice above a whisper. Samuel was immediately on edge, pulling his mask back down and patting his pockets to find the sharp little knife.

"Stop that!" she hissed, yanking his sleeve.

Samuel nearly dropped his knife at the motion, but recovered it in time to glare at Ash. "What the hell? You tell me there's a dead guy out there - one who was killed just a few feet from where we were standing and we didn't hear a thing - but you don't want me to use the only weapon I've got?"

"I don't think there's anyone out there," Ash insisted. "I would know if they were still here, but I'm not getting anything." He looked confused until she tapped her temple theatrically, then nodded in understanding.

"Okay, but if you're so sure nobody's out there, why are we in here?"

Ash couldn't think of an intelligent way to respond to that. "I don't feel anyone out there, but my instincts are telling me that something just isn't right."

"So, what do we do?"

"I have no idea," she admitted.

Samuel nodded. "Well, if it's all the same to you, I would rather not spend the whole night sitting in an alley that has a dead person in it."

"Fine," she huffed. "I'll go check it out."

"Are you sure about that? I can go so you don't have to."

Feeling somehow warmed by the offer, Ash shook her head. "No offense, but I'm small and a female. I'm way less likely to be shot than a man in a mask."

"You're also wearing a mask," Samuel pointed out.

"Fair point," she conceded, "but I'm still a small female. That holds more power than you'd think."

Samuel just nodded in response to this and Ash began to work her way back up to the mouth of the alley. It was a little creepier now that she knew there was a dead guy just outside of it, but if she could get past him and there really wasn't anyone lying in wait outside, she could get somewhere safe and make an anonymous call to the police about him.

After a brief, steadying pause at the front of the alleyway, Ash peeked around the corner to the right, staring out over the sprawled body of the man who had escaped a mugging and found something so much worse. The desolate street appeared to be completely empty in that direction and Ash breathed a little easier as she turned to look to the left-hand side.

A short distance away, the silhouette of a large man was propped against the brick wall of the left building. As Ash watched, frozen in the mouth of the alley, the man lifted a large knife and delicately began to trim the threads that had started unraveling from his gloves. Gloves that were made of black leather lined with bright red fabric. Gloves that matched the rest of his suit. Ash didn't need the pounding in her head to know what was happening: Deadpool was back.


	6. Deadpool Episode VI: Return of the Mercenary

Ash was frozen where she stood for a long moment, unable to process both the fact that there was someone in the immediate vicinity that her powers didn't sense and the more important fact that the someone in question was Deadpool. She hadn't seen the super-powered mercenary in months, not since she had been forced to rush out of her apartment. It wasn't from lack of trying, either. Ash had attempted to contact him several times, but there had been no answer. Eventually, Tony Stark had gotten information that he had been looking for and accepting contracts outside the United States and was slated to be out of the country for the foreseeable future.

All of this was just as well, to be honest. Jarvis had warned her that she had already taken the maximum dosage of the gel and that any further damage received from the injection and its response to Deadpool would probably be permanent. In other words, Ash had to avoid 'the Merc with the Mouth' at all costs or she could literally die.

 _Great job with that, by the way_ , her snarky internal voice congratulated. She couldn't even argue with said voice, not only because that would make her as crazy as the man in question, but also because - after many long months - she was standing only a short distance away from the one person who could kill her with his presence alone. This realization was underscored by the way she could feel her heart beginning to stutter, though that could honestly have more to do with the shock of seeing him again after so long.

Her eyes greedily soaked up the sight of him, which was odd considering that he looked almost exactly as he always had. The only reason he didn't look exactly the same was that his costume was covered in different stains than it had been last time. _Maybe he actually washed it between then and now. Unlikely. Knowing him, it's probably just a different suit._

Back when Deadpool was at her apartment almost weekly, he had tried so many times to sneak some of his spare suits into her laundry pile. Eventually, she had confronted him about it - mostly because his suits just smelled _so_ bad - and accused him of being too lazy to wash clothes himself, but Deadpool had told her over and over how much he hated laundry, especially since his friend Al had changed laundromats and refused to tell him which one she went to now. It was a story she hadn't bothered to doubt, and had just washed the suit to shut him up.

Realizing that it was unwise to zone out for this long when standing so close to someone she had so many secrets from, Ash shook off the memory and - to some extent - the happiness it had brought. Deadpool was still leaning against the wall, studying his gloves with a careless sense of distraction, but Ash knew that he could see her. He had been aware of her presence a lot longer than she had been of his and had probably been on high alert since she approached the mouth of the alley. As she watched, he rolled his head back and let it rest against the bricks behind him, appearing to be totally at ease, but Ash didn't miss the way his blank eyes stayed open slightly, just as watchful as they had been before.

She had just begun to wonder what the best course of action was when he groaned slightly. "Are you gonna stand there all night or can we get this over with?"

Ash finally realized why she hadn't registered Deadpool's presence earlier: he was an anomaly to her abilities. The mercenary seemed to only register one emotion at a time and that gave her exactly nothing to work with. What he was currently feeling was the only emotion she had access to - though whether this was due to some kind of reaction between the injection, the gel, Deadpool, and herself, or just who he was as a person, no one could say.

_Wonderful. First time you meet with what may well be your arch-nemesis and you realize you have literally no defenses against him. What else could go wrong?_

"Hey, what's going on?"

Ash had to swallow a groan as Samuel's voice came from just behind her. She couldn't turn around to talk to him in semi-privacy, but it didn't really matter. Deadpool had already addressed her directly, so there was no need to try to be secretive. Over her shoulder, she warned, "We've got company."

Noticing Deadpool's particular tic indicating that he was looking over at Samuel - though he was trying to be subtle by not moving his head - Ash edged over to shield the taller man as much as was possible. She couldn't provide much cover, but Ash wouldn't let her ex-friend hurt the newly-reformed man if she could help it. It did have an effect, though not necessarily the one she had hoped for, but for the first time since this bizarre interaction had started, the masked mercenary showed his interest. Deadpool finally lifted his head from the wall and turned to study the pair, giving them the full weight of his blankly white eyes.

After a moment of staring at them, Deadpool took a step toward the pair and threw his head back as he laughed, gesturing up and down at Ash's defensive posture. "Nice try, babe. If I wanted him dead, he would never have left that alley."

"I'm sure you'll understand if I choose to be sure," Ash said, trying to put into her voice a confidence she didn't feel.

Deadpool didn't have any response to that, instead standing in silence as he looked her up and down. Ash could read that his dominant emotion had switched to curiosity, interspersed with flashes of amusement, and hurriedly dropped her gaze. She was wearing colored contacts - as she had been since the start of her hero adventures - but Ash didn't want to take the chance of him recognizing her, even with the mask on. She also found that not meeting his gaze directly helped the forming headache fade slightly.

While she was looking at the ground, she realized there was little else to focus on other than the body of the man Samuel had tried to mug. Ash looked him over and felt a twinge of guilt and loss. She hadn't known the man - had never even heard him speak - but still, he had a life, probably a family, and now it was all gone for him.

As she stared down at the man, Deadpool was still watching her. "Who are you supposed to be?" he finally asked.

It was a good question. Any time Ash had been asked anything like that prior to this, she had simply increased a different emotion, changed the topic, and moved on. Now that this wasn't an option, she didn't have a ready answer. Instead, she let the feelings of anger and loss fill her voice as she asked seethingly, "Why did you kill this man?"

"I asked you first!" Deadpool responded playfully, wagging his finger teasingly in front of her face.

Ash knocked his hand aside, clenching her fists tightly to keep from hitting him again - not only because it was unwise to anger the twisted super, but also because it probably wasn't good to touch him any more than was necessary. "Do you think this is a joke? This man is dead!"

"I know. I'm the one who killed him," Deadpool said in a dry tone, blinking innocently at her.

Ash heaved a heavy sigh. If he really needed things spelled out, she could do that. Anything to get a straight answer from the man. "But _why_ did you kill him?"

"Ohhhh, you wanted a _reason_ ," the mercenary drew out understandingly. "Why didn't you just ask? That colossal douche-nozzle was coming back to kill you and I was still curious about you, so I un-alived him before he could do it."

Understandably, this explanation left Ash at a bit of a loss, stammering, "You- He- What?"

"He was a bad guy, connected to the Irish mob here in the city. They would send him to scope out their next targets. If it was low-risk enough, he would start doing some damage on his own. He's been on my list for a while. You," he added, leaning around Ash to stare chillingly at Samuel, "are on my list as well."

"He's changed," Ash defended, moving to stand between the two even as Samuel's voice came from behind her, testifying to the changes he had gone through since whenever Deadpool had decided to 'un-alive' him.

Deadpool scoffed. "They all say that. It's never true."

Ash folded her arms over her chest. "Yeah, but not everyone says that when there's not an active threat against them. I believe him, and I'll be the one to deal with him if he's not telling the truth."

The red-clad man looked very serious as he said, "You don't know this guy. You don't know the kinds of things he's done."

She could feel Sameul behind her, sense his emotions plummeting into guilt, shame, and self-loathing. Ash could read the man as he began to internalize and undo all they had just accomplished in their meeting in the alley. Frustrated, her retort came out a little sharper than she had intended. "Things like… being a professional mercenary with an admitted list of people you plan on killing if you come across them?"

Deadpool made an insulted noise, but Ash was more focused on Samuel. In a dejected mutter, he admitted, "No, he's right. If you had any idea what I've done… Or who I did it to… Well, you might decide my life isn't worth saving after all."

"C'mon, babe. I'm right; he admitted it. Just step aside and let me take care of things. I'll even make it fast, just for you." It felt odd to say that Deadpool was wheedling her to let him kill someone, but that's exactly what was going on.

Ash turned to Samuel. "I promise you, I will always believe your life is worth saving. I know you can change. More importantly, you know you can change, and that's all that really matters." With Samuel's sense of hope bolstered somewhat, Ash whirled around and glared at Deadpool, hoping fervently that the expression carried through the mask she was still wearing. "And you. How could you say all that about him? Don't you know he has a family, a daughter?"

Deadpool frowned and asked in a loud whisper. "Has anyone tried telling him that?"

Confused, Ash glanced back at Samuel and found him looking ashamed. "I haven't been a very active dad in Justine's life. After Patrice… After, I just had a really tough time doing anything, including being around her." He stared at the ground. "She looks just like her mother."

"That sounds like the kind of thing you're going to try to fix, right?" Samuel nodded and Ash looked back to Deadpool triumphantly. "See? He needs some time to work on things."

The mercenary remained silent, probably thinking over the best way to convince her to let him un-alive Samuel while still being as sarcastic as possible. Instead of waiting for him to work this out, Ash looked over her shoulder at Samuel. "I would leave now before he changes his mind and decides to take you out."

"Hang on!" Deadpool pouted. "When did I say I was going to let him go?"

"If you wanted him dead, he never would have left that alley," Ash parroted dryly.

Deadpool smirked before seeming to catch himself. "Wait, no. I mean, yeah, it's still true, but I haven't decided if he's leaving or not."

Samuel oddly appeared to agree with this. "Are you sure you want me to leave you alone with this guy? He's obviously unhinged. Who knows what he could do? I could stay or we could both leave at the same time. It's safer."

"Hey, if I decide to let you leave, you'd better run out of here as soon as you can," Deadpool said darkly. "Don't worry about her when you're in so much more danger."

Ignoring the mercenary, Ash glanced back at Samuel once more. "Thank you, that's very sweet, but you should go. I'll be fine." Samuel looked unconvinced and Ash rolled her eyes slightly toward Deadpool. "I can handle him."

Giving a short nod, Samuel moved out from behind Ash and carefully darted between the intimidating Deadpool and the other man's dead body. Deadpool watched Samuel go, eyes narrowed, but didn't make any move to stop his escape. Ash fervently hoped that the man kept to his promises to change. In the event that he slipped up, she would try to reach him before Deadpool did, but there was no way of knowing for sure that she would beat the mercenary - and she was sure that his sense of justice would be a far cry from merciful.

There was a short silence after Samuel's departure as Ash studied Deadpool carefully, watching for any signs of a decision to hurt her. Over the last few months, she had gotten accustomed to using her abilities to help gauge what was going to happen next. Suddenly being without them after so long was like being head blind in the most disconcerting way.

Finally, Deadpool's eyes flicked away from the corner where Samuel had disappeared and stared down at her. It was only when her head gave a warning throb that Ash realized how close they were still standing and that she should have moved away when he wasn't paying attention. In any case, he looked down at her and smiled, purring darkly, "Tell me more about how you plan on 'handling' me."

Ash had to take a minute to fight back a grin. He hadn't changed a bit, no matter how much she had. When she was sure he wouldn't hear the smile in her voice, she said sternly, "By waiting until he's too far away for you to follow, then walking away myself. If you'll excuse me?"

Without waiting for an answer, she pushed past the large, red-clad man. Ash was relieved, but more than a little surprised, when he didn't move to stop her. Of course, she grew far less relieved when she realized he was following her.

As soon as she understood what was going on, she turned around to confront him, only to find that he must have been trailing literally at her heels with how close he was standing. Ash took two large steps backward, trying to ward off any adverse reaction from the injection, and crossed her arms in an attempt to look larger and more threatening - which of course, sadly failed against the bulky and imposing Deadpool. "Why are you following me?"

"There are some things we need to talk about," he answered cryptically.

Ash let the statement stand for a moment to see if he would elaborate, but he just stood staring at her. _Well, if that's all he's going to give me to go on…_ "Nah, think I'll pass." Leaving his incredulous face behind, she faced forward once more and began walking a bit faster. After a brief pause, he began following her once more. Ash didn't like it, but she wasn't sure what could actually be done about her new, bloodthirsty shadow.

It wasn't as though he was trying to be subtle, either. Deadpool could be shockingly hard to trace when he wanted to be, but at the moment, he obviously wanted Ash to know he was there and not leaving any time soon. He was humming a nonsensical little tune, though it was hard to hear over the sound of his footsteps. Ash winced a little at the clapping sound his shoes made on the cement, fairly certain he was stomping to make that particular ringing sound.

Ash pushed her pace a little faster. The street where they were walking was virtually abandoned, and the only person in sight was an older man walking in the opposite direction. Hardly a match for Deadpool if he decided he had something against her and wanted to revisit his policy on 'un-aliving' innocent people. _Not that anyone short of The Avengers would have any hope of fighting Deadpool and walking away._

Incapable of defending her as he was, as she passed the man on the sidewalk, Ash politely said, "Excuse me, sir." He didn't say anything, simply nodding slightly as he grumbled under his breath.

Ash could judge roughly how far behind Deadpool was when he greeted, "Hey, Stan Lee." The man grumbled again, and apparently kept walking since she heard no further conversation between the two. It was odd, but she didn't expect anything else from the notoriously strange Deadpool.

She sighed a little to herself as she finally came to terms with it. _He's not going to just get tired and stop following me… At least, not until I say something to get rid of him._ Besides, she was getting uncomfortably close to her apartment. It wouldn't be a benefit to anyone if Deadpool started putting pieces together and figured out who she was. _If he blamed himself for me getting attacked, I don't even want to think about how guilty he would be for acting as the catalyst for the injection._

Since she was thinking of the injection, Ash carefully took stock of how she was feeling. After all, she was going on almost an hour of exposure to Deadpool, and Jarvis had been given to believe that more time spent with him wasn't a good thing. Ash had doubted this assessment at first, insisting that it would be better to just try being around him and make further judgments from what happened. Jarvis was not a fan of this plan. " _I cannot pretend to know with any certainty what would happen, Miss Akerstrom, but I do know that it would likely not end well for you. The injection is still active, and though we are working on a method of removing it from your system, there is no doubt that it is still capable of - and, indeed, waiting for a chance to - attack your organs once more. Need I remind you that the gel will not help if you collapse again?"_

She had sighed in defeat. " _No, Jarvis, I remember."_

Despite her admittance, he had persisted. " _So you will agree not to seek out Master Pool?"_

" _Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's not much of a sacrifice since he's avoiding the entire United States for the foreseeable future, but sure. You have my promise."_

Jarvis had given an impressively dry laugh, for a robot. " _One never knows for certain, Miss Akerstrom, especially when Master Pool is involved."_

As she reflected on Jarvis's oddly-prophetic words, Ash thought carefully through how she was feeling: Her heart was beating normally, not accounting for the few skipped beats due to adrenaline and surprise. It had ached a bit during the debate over letting Samuel leave, but whether the feeling was physical or emotion, she couldn't tell. Her head, on the other hand, had been hurting almost constantly since she first stepped out of the alleyway. It was mostly a dull pain, though it tended to spike when she met Deadpool's blank white gaze. Her stomach was fine, however, and that gave her some confidence. It had been such a huge factor in her health the last time around that the absence of problems made Ash hopeful that she wasn't going to collapse any time soon.

So, she decided that she was healthy enough to have a true confrontation with Deadpool, rather than just shrugging him off again or simply hoping he was going to leave her alone. Making a quick decision about locations, Ash stopped on an overpass only a few blocks from her apartment. It was still oddly empty for a road in the city, but it was well-lit and there were enough cars passing by to make her feel safe - especially with the attention they were getting from their suits and covered faces.

Once again, he was standing far too close and she had to take a step back. "I'm sorry," Ash said, voice dripping with faux politeness. "Did you need something?"

Deadpool's eyes widened in surprise (fake surprise, of course: Ash knew his real surprise had a lot more to do with large amounts of swearing followed by exclamations of how surprised he was) as he pretended to think. "Hmm… Yeah, a name would be a good place to start."

Now it was Ash's turn to pretend to think, and she went the full distance of tapping a finger against her chin as she did, stalling as she tried to summon the nerve to say what she thought she should. _If you're going to play the part, play it well._ "Let's see… manaic? Nah, too 1960s. Obnoxious? Sure, but it doesn't quite do the crazy part of you justice. Psychopath? Hmm… close, but it leaves out that weird humor. Maybe 'a knockoff, bicolored Joker with extra mental damage and an unfortunately-effective healing factor' would work? Your decision, of course."

It hurt something inside of Ash to say something like that to someone she considered a friend, but there were two reasons it was necessary: one, she needed to not only convince him to leave her alone, and two, to make sure he didn't realize he had known her before all of this. It became more clear than ever that the ending of their friendship - no matter how unexpected or accidental - was probably for the best. That being said, since they weren't interacting in the context of friendship, Ash had no real idea how he was going to react to her harsh comments and she held her breath as she waited for his reaction.

The large mercenary simply threw back his head and laughed. When he finally calmed down - wiping tears from the eyes of his mask - he sighed contentedly. "Well, for someone who hates me so much, you sure know a lot about me! But it was interesting. I don't usually see attitude from you."

Relief swept through her. While she would like to say that Deadpool would never hurt her, Ash couldn't know it with any certainty. Deadpool was somewhat deranged at the best of times - though those were hard to distinguish from his worst - and neither she nor her alter-ego were on the friendliest of terms with the man. In any case, it was a good thing he didn't seem to be angry with her for the blatant insult she had just delivered. All of this should have given her a feeling of contentedness, but Ash just felt like she was missing something.

"Wait… 'usually'? That's kind of a weird thing to say. You've only known me for ten minutes and most of that hasn't been spent talking."

"That's true, but I've been following you for, what? Probably three months now. You get to know someone pretty well after all that time."

The casual tone made Ash somewhat more likely to believe the fairly fantastic story, but even as a thrill of unease shot down her spine, she couldn't help but to outright deny what Deadpool had just said. "You must be kidding. Th- that's impossible."

Deadpool just snorted in response. "Yeah," he drawled, gesturing up and down at her. "Like that outfit makes you difficult to track. Besides, I could be right beside you and you'd never see me." At her disbelieving look, he pressed fingertips to his chest. "Mercenary, remember? We don't exactly like to advertise where we're going. I'm a very sneaky guy when I need to be."

"Really," Ash said skeptically. "Who taught you to sneak, the Incredible Hulk?"

"Again with the insults! To me and the Hulk, who is actually a very nice person, fuck you very much for your uninformed and stereotypical assumptions." Ash couldn't tell him how very wrong he was, which was almost enough to drive her crazy, but Deadpool's next statement proved that she had other things to worry about. With his white eyes studying her up and down, he mused, "Usually I have to know someone before they start insulting me like this. And the only ones I know that well aren't stupid enough to do stuff like run around and pretend to be a superhero."

As she tried to think up some way to respond to that, Deadpool's gaze sharpened as he watched her even more intently than before. Ash's head began to pound in earnest, and she began avoiding his eyes as much as possible in an effort to dampen the effects.

" _Do_ I know you?" he asked eventually.

"No, you definitely don't know me." He looked unconvinced and she forced a little laugh. "I don't exactly make a habit of hanging around with mercenaries or… whatever you do when you're not out as 'Deadpool'."

The super in question nodded in understanding before suddenly reaching out toward Ash's face, making a grab for the mask covering the upper half of her face. Fortunately, she had sensed a weird emotional flicker from him a split second before, and her instincts screamed at her to throw herself backward. A moment later, she was standing several feet back from Deadpool, glaring at him through the mask she clutched protectively against her face.

"What the hell, Deadpool?"

He shrugged unconcernedly. "I had to try."

Being as familiar with the man as she was, Ash kept a careful eye on him and so was prepared when he made another grab for her mask only a few seconds later. She slapped his hand as hard as she could before darting backward even further.

"Would you _stop_ that?!" she snapped.

"I mean, I'll try, but I can't make any promises."

Ash sighed. "Okay, then I need to leave. And you need to stop following me."

"Mmm… Nope. I can't promise that, either," Deadpool said unrepetantly. She glared at him, but he only crossed his arms and smiled over at her.

"What is it going to take to make you agree to stop following me?"

"You taking off the mask and showing me your face. Obviously."

"How about you take off _your_ mask and show me _your_ face?" Ash parried back.

Deadpool shrugged and began plucking at the neck of his suit, ready to pull the mask up and over his face. Ash's head gave an earth-stopping pound as her heart stuttered. She held up a hand. "Wait! I didn't think you would actually do it. Please keep your mask on."

"Yeah," he said with a wry grin, "My face chases all the girls away."

Ash had only a second to wonder if he was referencing her civilian self before he dove at her, making yet another grab for the mask, and she had to put all of her focus into dodging his gloved hands. "Hey, what are you- Agh! I thought we were past this?"

"Come on!" he grunted, moving to follow her. "I know I know you. Just let me see your face!"

"You don't know me! You really don't!" Ash lied, exasperation in her frantic voice.

They started to circle a bench, Ash trying to keep it between Deadpool and herself as he lectured her. "I swear, if you're someone I know and you're doing this stupid shit, we're gonna have a problem!"

"You've already got enough problems!" she mocked.

He dove at Ash again, but she rounded the bench one more time. "I'm serious! You're gonna get hurt out here!"

With that warning, Deadpool vaulted the bench and snatched at the mask, this time from only inches away. Dancing around his outstretched fingertips, Ash tapped the radio in her ear twice, sighing when she heard the high-pitched confirmation whistle almost immediately. Deadpool blocked her access to the bench, but that didn't matter. Without a backwards glance, she turned and smoothly vaulted the safety rail, plummeting toward the street below.


	7. Hero Academy: Mission to New York

After falling for what seemed like forever, Ash landed on Iron Man's back with a bone-rattling _thud_ , but the impact was still far better than it would have been if she had landed on the street below. After making sure she was secure - a bit of a process involving some cleverly-installed handles, a brace, and some backup thrusters for the additional weight - Tony Stark's voice sounded in her ear. He was transmitting through the earpiece on a frequency specially set up for situations like this, and only accessible for the two of them.

"What's up, Ash? Why'd you need the rescue?"

"I'll tell you about it later," she hedged, confident that the microphone in the earpiece's cord was powerful enough to pick up her voice, even despite the wind. "Is there any chance you could fly around for a few minutes before dropping me at my apartment?"

The plan made sense to her. After all, it wouldn't be good if Deadpool had gone to the rail and seen Iron Man fly away with her, then saw the same hero make his way to her apartment. Assuming the mercenary cared long enough to put the pieces together, even he couldn't fail to understand what was going on. _Actually, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to just suck it up and find a new place…_

This realization, Ash's plan, and all other thoughts faded from Ash's mind as Tony responded in the negative. "Sorry, kid, I can't do that. You know the rules: one rescue, one visit to the Tower to see Pepper. You're in for the long haul." His tone grew darker, menacing. "You had better brace yourself. She's heard stories about all the dangerous stuff you've been doing and she's had a lecture lined up for weeks." He hissed in sympathy. "It's not gonna be pretty."

Sure enough, two hours later, Ash found herself still sitting at the large, varnished-wood table in Tony and Pepper's living space in the Tower. Pepper's lecture had been going on for roughly an hour and forty-five minutes and Ash had given in to the rolling waves of guilt and shame that the redhead had been throwing down. Dimly, she heard Pepper ask a question and - without picking her head up from her hands - repeated for the sixth time, "I know, Pepper. You're right; I need to be more careful."

Obviously recognizing the battle-weary tone even from where he sat designing some technology with Jarvis, Tony chuckled. Pepper glared at him as she continued in the same vein she had been speaking on for most of the lecture. "I know you have powers now, and that's a difficult thing to get used to. Trust me, I was there with Tony and your adjustment time has been a thousand times better than his was-"

Still sitting across the room, Tony said in offended tones, "Hey! You're forgetting: how many times during my 'adjustment time' did I save your life?"

Raising her voice only slightly, Pepper kept talking. "-but you're eventually going to come across some psychopathic whackjob who doesn't have any feelings for you to exploit."

Ash shifted guiltily in her chair. Pepper's warning was uncomfortably close to what had happened that night and she needed to ask some questions. Turning in her chair, she looked over at Tony. "Speaking of, how well do you know-"

Tony snorted. "Nice try, kid. Pep's not even close to being done yet."

Tucking a loose strand of strawberry hair behind her ear, Pepper glared over at Tony. "No, 'Pep' is pretty much done… with you, at least. Tony and I are going to have a conversation later tonight, one that he will _not_ enjoy. What did you want to ask, Ash?"

Trying to ignore Tony, groaning over the news of his impending lecture from Pepper, Ash cleared her throat. "Well, um, I wanted to ask - how well do you guys know Deadpool?"

To his credit, Tony instantly stopped complaining and grew serious. Gaze intense on Ash, he asked, "Why do you ask? Because he only agreed to come here when he knew you had been injured and he wanted to check up you. We all thought you were the one who knew him best out of any of us."

Ash didn't let her gaze waver and Tony eventually decided to give more information. "Well, as a general rule, no one knows him very well. At least, none of us do. There are some stories about a bartender, an older blind lady, and some really weird stuff about him and Spider-Man, but other than that, no one knows much about the guy, other than the basics."

"The basics?" she repeated, unsure of what the billionaire hero was referring to.

"Yeah, you know," he said with a shrug. "The stuff you can tell from spending just a couple of minutes with the guy. Basically, 'unstable' is an understatement." Tony's eyes sharpened. "Why, was he there tonight? Is that why you needed a rescue?"

Ash gestured widely, trying to cut off the tirade she knew was coming. "First off, I needed a quick escape. It was not a rescue. And secondly, I know Wade Wilson, it's Deadpool I don't know enough about. Even then, I really only need to know if he has a history of lying. Or exaggerating. Stretching the truth in any way, basically."

Neither Tony nor Pepper made any attempt to answer, but Jarvis's clipped tones cut in. "Miss Akerstrom, Deadpool has many faults, but he is never less than one hundred percent honest. Some even say that he is, perhaps, too honest."

Ash laughed awkwardly. She could believe that. "At least that aspect of his personality is the same," she mused even as her brain whirred through the implications of this. "Does he send you guys a text every time he sees a dog that he says looks like you?"

Ignoring both her question and her attempt at levity, Pepper gently touched Ash's hand. "Ash, what's going on? Has he been bothering you?"

Giving the woman an uncomfortable smile, Ash drew her hand out from under Pepper's. Her powers increased so much more with touch that she often received too much information from the other person. "No, not really. Tonight is the first night I've seen him since all of this," she gestured down at her poorly-suited body, "happened."

"Well, there had to be a reason you asked," Tony deduced. "It almost sounded like you were thinking - hoping, actually - that he was lying about something. So what was it?"

"I- He- Okay, so he said something about how he's been following me for three months. I was just kind of hoping that was an exaggeration or - best case scenario - an outright lie." Ash hadn't glanced up from the table during this confession, but the lack of response on everyone's part spoke volumes about what they were thinking.

Finally, the deafening silence was broken by a long, low whistle from Tony. "Wow. He's sure got a hard-on where you're concerned."

"Let's hope not," Ash responded dryly.

Tony chuckled, but Pepper looked deadly serious as she leaned forward. "What are you going to do about this? I mean, I'm assuming you don't want him to find out about all of this. I understand the situation and why you reacted to all of this the way that you did, but I wouldn't be surprised if Deadpool found out and was even more hurt that you didn't confide in him from the beginning."

"I definitely don't want that," Ash agreed, tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling. "I mean, I tried to tell him about the injection before everything went sideways, but he didn't want to listen to me. Then, he was so upset because he thought I was rejecting him that I never got the chance to explain. All of this assuming that I didn't fall over and die on the spot from whatever this injection is still trying to do." She sighed, allowing her eyelid to flutter closed. "I guess I just- I just don't know what to do."

"Might I offer a suggestion?" Jarvis asked politely, but went on without waiting for an answer. "While Master Pool certainly is not unintelligent, he is not the most observant. Perhaps if you were to change the suit you wear while you patrol, it would be enough to escape his notice, at least until a more permanent solution were to be found."

Tony snapped his fingers, pointing at Ash in the same gesture. "That's a great plan. You figure out what you need, Jarvis and I will make it work."

Ash shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know if that's quite feasible…"

She didn't want to bring money into the conversation, especially when two of the others involved were a billionaire and a high-paid executive. However, Ash's funds were low and there were no signs of financial improvement. It had been weeks since she had brought in a skip, partially because of all of the crime fighting she was doing, but also because it was shockingly difficult to bring someone in when you could feel exactly how regretful they were for their actions. In fact, the last skip she had picked up had been a young girl hiding with her mother. Their combined emotions had almost been too much for Ash. She had only barely dropped the girl off at the police station when she was violently ill.

The point was, experimental suits and such were great, but they didn't come cheap. At the current point in Ash's life, 'cheap' was about all she could afford, so it seemed best to politely reject Tony's offer and continue with her current methods. _Although_ , she reflected, _it might be better to lay low for a bit, at least until Deadpool is done being weird about my identity and everything._

Pepper's 'business' voice cut through Ash's introspection. "Money, of course, is a matter of no importance." Ash gaped at the woman's ability to see and put a stop to all of her subtext and avoidance. In a tone that was more logical and conciliatory, she said, "It would actually be a good planning exercise, testing our ability to put technology into a suit that isn't being built for Tony."

"Pepper…" Ash groaned, knowing that it was charity, but finding it hard to fight that the woman had made several good points.

"Ash, it would really give us all a peace of mind to know that you're safe out there, being protected by something other than eight layers of sweatshirt material and powers that you barely know how to use."

"I- But- Fine," she agreed, deciding to give in semi-gracefully while she still had the option. "Where do we start with-"

"Ash, which of these do you like the most?"

The woman in question turned to face Tony, standing at a holographic display with about six different design ideas hovering randomly around the interface. "Did you already have these _planned_?" Ash asked, hurrying over before he decided to choose one for her.

"Of course not," he denied, sounding offended. "Jarvis knows your powers, I know tech, and we whipped up these designs based on the features you need. What, did you expect it to take hours?"

"Hours? I was thinking more like days."

"Days?" Tony echoed, sounding horrified.

"I should have expected something like this, so I apologize," Ash admitted. "But I don't know if you and Jarvis actually know what I need any better than I do, so shouldn't I be the one dictating what features are included?"

Tony laughed. "Kid, you know what you do, but I know the criminals in this city. I know what you're up against, and as the one who helps me patch up my suits after patrols, Jarvis does too."

"Well, I should at least have some input."

"Naturally. What do you want to decide?"

"Um…" Ash drew slowly, having not really considered what she wanted to choose for her suit. "Color scheme?"

"Nuh-uh. I've already picked your colors: they'll be the same as mine. Having your suit painted up like Iron Man's and stamped with the Stark Industries production mark, you'll go onto the streets with some protection already. If people know you're affiliated with me, they'll be less likely to mess with you."

"No, not happening. I'm not walking around in a suit that is made to look like Iron Man's." Tony looked somewhat offended and Ash grinned. "At best, people will think I'm some crazy Iron Man fanboy and not take me seriously. Worst case: they'll think I am you and try to attack me."

Tony now _definitely_ looked offended, but Pepper let out a somewhat-restrained giggle. "Possible."

Turning his disgusted expression on her, too, Tony said, "I don't have nearly as many enemies as you two seem to think, but I don't expect you to walk around in a copycat Iron Man suit." His face turned devious. "In fact, I don't expect you to _walk_ at all…"

* * *

Two days and several failed attempts at flight later, Ash had managed to talk Tony down from adding thrusters to her suit. Even he had to admit that she seemed to do best while her feet were solidly on the ground.

She had been staying at Avengers Tower ever since the run-in with Deadpool, and she was grateful for the opportunity to stay off the radar. Of course, the fact that it put her in close quarters with both Jarvis and Tony Stark meant that Ash was spending quite a bit of her time doing a variety of tests designed to help narrow down the criteria for her suit. Some of them were basic physical challenges while others were more about testing her abilities. As time went on, there were more of the second kind.

After yet another of these tests, Ash flopped down on a conveniently-placed chair and glared at the whole of the room. It was empty, as Tony was in the lab trying to work out a bug in a potential suit, but Jarvis was always nearby "Okay, Jarvis, that's enough. What's really going on?"

"I cannot pretend to know what you mean, Miss Akerstrom."

"You shouldn't be able to lie to me: you're a robot!"

"I am an intelligence system."

"It's still rude to lie," Ash huffed. "I'm not stupid, and I've noticed that you're doing more tests on the strength of my 'powers' and I want to know why. Are the side effects of the gel starting to fade or something?"

"I'm afraid the situation is quite the opposite, Miss Akerstrom. It seems that, as time goes on, the abilities brought about by introducing the gel are only becoming stronger."

Ash nodded slowly, trying to understand what he was telling her. "And why would that be?"

"Our best hypothesis is that there was a type of dormant mutation in your genes that was awakened by the gel. There seems to be little chance to stop the strengthening unless we understand what it is caused by. That is why we have been watching you perform different persuasion tasks of varying levels. We need to know how much of your abilities are caused by the gel and how much are from your genes."

"But why would that be a bad thing? Surely having stronger powers would only be considered a positive."

"To some extent, yes. The more powerful you are, the easier it will be for you to influence others and the better you will be able to do what you see as your part for society. However, there are some definite drawbacks as well. As I'm sure you've already noticed, your abilities increase with touch."

Thinking back to the young female skip and Pepper, Ash nodded her agreement, forgetting that Jarvis had no way to see the motion (that she was aware of). He continued regardless. "That was not an original side effect, was it?" She shook her head. "We assumed not. It seems that, eventually, it will be as uncomfortable for you to be around people as it currently is for you to touch them."

The thought made a chill run up Ash's spine. "Are there any people with similar levels of power to what mine might be at peak level?"

"There is one: a member of the X-Men named Rogue. She doesn't deal with emotions, but she is a siphon for powers and abilities, most often transmitted through physical contact. Rogue also can absorb personality traits, memories, and even physical characteristics, all by touching others. She rarely has contact with people due to this issue. In her case, the use of her powers could be avoided by not having any physical contact with people, but as you pick up emotions without contact even without being at the height of your powers..."

It sounded fairly close to hell, especially when put in context of Ash and her focus on emotions. _Would I even be able to have my own emotions anymore, or would I just be a vessel holding other people's feelings?_ "I- I really don't want that," she said, unable to keep her voice from shaking. "What's the worst-case scenario?"

Ash wasn't certain she wanted to know the answer to the question, but the fact that Jarvis took so long to respond made her dread it even more. "In your specific case, the major danger is you being driven insane by the cacophony of emotions to which you are exposed."

She felt herself blanche at his statement, despite the semi-comforting tone with which it had been delivered. Jarvis did hurry to add, "Rest assured, Miss Akerstrom, we are doing all that we can to develop a method to reverse all of this. If we can neutralize the injection, your system will stop sensing a threat and your abilities should cease growth, and perhaps disappear altogether."

"Is that even possible?" she asked in a whisper. "Is there any real chance I'll go back to being normal?"

"There is always a chance, Ashton."

It was the first time Jarvis had ever addressed her with anything other than a proper title and it was enough to shake Ash back to herself. She stood quickly and headed for Tony's lab. "I have to do something," she said, answering Jarvis's unasked question. "If I sit around waiting to go crazy, I'll probably just speed up the process."

* * *

"Okay, Ash," Tony coached. "Just make it through the course and we'll be able to start finalizing the suit. This is what the last week has been about."

Ash took a deep breath and focused all of her attention on the course spread around the room. This was the Avengers's training area, and it had proven to be more of a challenge than she ever would have expected. Tony had insisted, however, that she had to make one full run of the track through the mock city before he would start production on a suit. " _After all,"_ he had said, " _It doesn't make sense to build a suit that you can't move in."_

It had been a fair point, and since the conversation with Jarvis, Ash had become suddenly unafraid. Before, she had always treated her body as something easily breakable - with the exception of the time she had been beaten by that group - but now that she knew the clock was very definitely ticking, she had lost all fear. If nothing else, she needed to get out on the street in this suit to do some good before she lost the ability to help anyone - even herself.

"And… _Go!_ " Tony said sharply. High above them, a projection on the wall began to record her time down to the millisecond, but Ash was only dimly aware of this. She was far too busy attacking the course. Ash did jump slightly when _Shoot To Thrill_ by AC/DC started playing, but she just rolled her eyes. It was Tony's personal 'get psyched' song, and he played it at least once every training session they had.

The straight sprint was first, an easy stretch to start. Ash kept herself in fairly good shape, so the real challenge was at the end, when she had to take a sharp turn to the right. There was a temptingly-placed light pole that she had at first tried to grip and swing herself around to keep her momentum, but Tony had shut that down immediately. " _There's no benefit to it. You would literally be faster if you slowed down to a light jog and turned the corner."_

" _There's no way that's true," Ash had panted. "It helps me turn the corner faster."_

" _Actually, he's right," Captain Rogers had said, unexpectedly joining them in training. "All of our gloves have special gripping material on them - well, the ones of us who don't wear metal gloves." This was said with a joking glare at Tony. "But with that material, if you don't grip hard enough, your hand will slip off. If you grip too hard, the material will stick slightly and slow you down even more."_

Together, the two had shown her an alternative method, and she used it now, carefully planting a foot on the bottom of the pole so she could propel herself off and to the right. Ash was still at a full sprint as she moved down the replica street to the right. The next obstacle was a line of cars parked in front of a fairly tall wall - almost too easy to conquer with the technology packed into her suit.

With a simple command, Ash activated the low-powered motion thrusters in her boots. They could barely be classified as thrusters since they had no feasible ability to lift her off the ground, but they were enough to amplify her movements. The result was a sort of superpowered parkour, and after bounding onto the hood of a car, she leapt easily over the rest of the barrier and continued her mad sprint toward the building that marked the rest of her path.

Once she was standing at the foot of the building, she scanned the front of it, paying special attention to the windows. _There!_ She thought triumphantly. On the third level, one window was open just a few inches. She was a tad nervous as she began scaling the exterior - especially as she had only needed to enter a second-story window in other runs - but she was confident she could accomplish the task.

" _You know Spider-Man?" Tony had asked as they discussed the feasibility of climbing straight up the side of a building with no grip points._

" _Yes," she had responded tonelessly. "I know far more than I like to admit about Spider-Man."_

 _Tony studied her in surprise. "Huh. I'll have to tell him he's got a fan. Anyway, the grip on the gloves and the toes of your boots mimics Spider-Man's ability to cling to any surface. It's not nearly as powerful, especially since it's on a wearable surface instead of your skin, but it'll be enough to help you get out of any-" he snorted and Ash rolled her eyes before he even finished with, "-_ sticky _situations."_

Trying to ignore the connection to the superhero she disliked so much, Ash hover-leapt from the ground, catching herself as far up the building as she could reach before beginning to climb. Only a matter of seconds passed while she shuffled up the exterior wall, cranked the window back, and eased lightly into the darkened room. This was where the most difficult - but also the most crucial - part of the test would take place.

The space was set up like someone's living room, complete with furniture and pictures. Of course, Ash had only moments to study her surroundings before one of Tony's training dummies was coming toward her. Built to mimic the attack patterns and reaction times of the average citizen, these dummies weren't what Ash had been expecting when she first experienced them. In fact, they had thrown her off badly enough to beat her a few times. There was nothing more humbling than being taken down by a heavily-padded robot, she had found out.

Fortunately, the members of the Avengers had set aside one embarrassing, exhausting day to give her as much training as possible in hand-to-hand combat. Tony had taught her about analyzing fighting patterns, Natasha Romanoff and Captain Rogers had demonstrated several of their favorite methods of neutralizing a threat (Black Widow's moves tended to be a bit more violent than the Captain's), and Hawkeye had helped her learn how to take a fall without hurting herself or losing any time - surprisingly, a skill he had learned working in a circus as a young man. Thor was out of town for the lesson and Doctor Banner just insisted that there was nothing he could teach her, though he did contribute some interesting ideas on how to pad her suit to avoid nerve damage from hits.

As she had been trained, Ash bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, ready for the dummy's attempted jabs. She dodged those easily, not bothering to waste energy in blocking the punches. While she dodged, Ash waited for an opening. There was always an opening, sooner or later. When she spotted an unguarded section of ribcage, Ash dove at it, taking the dummy down in a tackle. On the floor, their difference in height mattered far less and Ash attacked in a series of punches and elbow jabs, standing up only to get the leverage for a sharp right hook designed to render the dummy 'unconscious'.

The moment Ash knew the dummy was down for the count, she pulled the handcuffs from one of the many pockets on her pants and cuffed its hands together. She made a quick sweep through the rest of the 'apartment' and, finding nothing, rushed to the window. After flinging it wide open again, Ash hung out through the open panel and shouted, "Time!"

The clock on the wall stopped, showing one of the best times Ash had ever managed. By his own rules, Tony would have to watch the footage of how Ash had done in the hand-to-hand section, but the dummy hadn't landed a single blow and she had restrained it without incident. Ash was fairly certain she had passed the obstacle course without issue and would soon be receiving a suit to work with.

Before she was even aware of her own actions, Ash had climbed back out of the window and made her careful way down to the street, where she was surrounded by the various members of the Avengers. They had been watching from the control tower, ready to call points against Ash as they caught mistakes she had made. There had been a few minor ones, as it turned out, but nothing crucial enough to be brought up, they assured her.

From there, the group made their way to the weapons training area, where Ash was tested on her knowledge of and accuracy with several of the firearms and throwing knives. This was considered to be a bit less of a challenge, since she was already fully qualified to carry a firearm in a few different states and had passed many such tests. Ash passed this one as well, obviously, and was told to go relax for a while.

Exactly seventeen hours and twenty-two minutes later, Jarvis notified Ash that her final suit was ready and that she could go try it on at any point. Feeling distinctly like a child at Christmas, Ash went immediately. She reveled in the weight of the body armor, marveled at the smooth detailing where various pieces of Stark technology had been packed into the suit, and was nearly ecstatic to find that Tony hadn't gone through with his threat to paint everything in Iron Man's colors. Eventually, as Jarvis had told her, Tony had given in and decided that she should be able to choose her own paint scheme.

After giving it a few minutes of thought - and looking at several different samples through projections Jarvis had cast onto the suit as she wore it - Ash decided on a rich forest green with the edging and details in simple flat black. Jarvis insisted that she remove the suit before it was painted, as fumes were fumes and he didn't want anyone exposed to them, then proceeded onto quite a different topic while the suit was being worked on.

"Have you given any thought to what you wish to be called, Miss Akerstrom?"

"Um… No, not really. I didn't have an actual superhero name before and I don't really see a need for one now," Ash said honestly.

"I must respectfully disagree," Jarvis smoothly responded. "You have a legitimate suit now and a link to the Avengers. These things will make many of those who ignored you before now take you seriously. They'll want to know your name, and if you refuse to provide one, they'll likely name you themselves. And, as I'm sure you have seen with some of the other heroes, the media is rarely willing to be complimentary."

"That's true," Ash mused. "But how do I even go about picking a name? I don't have any one defining feature as a 'hero' and my powers really aren't anything to brag about…"

"Perhaps you should focus less on who you are as a hero and more on who you are as a person," Jarvis suggested. "Or choose a name based on the kind of person that your abilities have helped you become."

It was fairly solid advice and Ash considered it carefully. "Well, I deal a lot with people's feelings and how their situations affect them. I learn their stories and help them deal with the things they don't think they would be able to without my help. I want them to trust me - I know it sounds cheesy, but I want to be a sort of friend to people. I want them to know that I just want to help them."

"Is that what you would like to use as your name?"

Ash snorted. "'Friend'? I don't think so. It's a little simplistic."

"Of course, though there are a number of synonyms you could choose from. One of the possibilities is sure to strike you as a more sophisticated term."

"You might be right," Ash admitted. "Can you suggest anything in particular?"

"Ally, companion, compatriot, consort, confidante-"

"That one," Ash interrupted. "That's the one I want: Confidante."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This should be the last of the Deadpool-lite chapters of this fic. There are only three chapters left, so that's not a great promise, but here we are.


	8. Once More With Feeling

Ash strode through the streets, comfortable now with both the suit and the new twist her life had taken. Nearly a full month had passed since she had become Confidante and things were going smoothly. She was more efficient in both moving around the city and in stopping the crimes that took place in it, plus she hadn't run into Deadpool since the encounter with Samuel.

The only downside from the experience was that, thanks to accepting their help, Ash was now firmly on the Avengers' radar. It didn't happen every time, but it wasn't uncommon for one of the heroes to accompany her while she did patrols around her chosen section of the city. Ash didn't mind the company, especially since each of the Avengers was fascinating in their own way, but she honestly felt like she was being chaperoned around the city, and that was not a situation she was comfortable with. After she finally worked up the courage to tell everyone how she felt, they denied that they were escorting her due to lack of trust or anything similar, but did offer to back off a little.

It was on a blessedly solitary patrol when a small group of men walked past Ash, paying her no attention. She wouldn't have thought twice about them, either, but their emotions were worrying: she had never sensed such a potent combination of malevolent intent and self-satisfied excitement. Moving as subtly as she could, Ash trailed behind the men, following as they moved toward a local bank. It was dark outside but only just so, and the bank was getting ready to close.

The men rushed to pull masks over their faces before they burst inside, slamming the door behind them - unfortunately, before Ash could enter and attempt to speak with them. She hurriedly crouched behind the brick half-wall that made up the front of the bank and listened as closely as she could while the would-be bank robbers warned the handful of people still inside that they were now hostages.

Feeling uncomfortably cowardly, Ash retreats from the building. There is no way inside, but she happened to be familiar with this particular bank and knew how to get to the security office. With plans of trying her abilities through the bank's intercom system, she made her way to the office and began eying up the cameras. It wouldn't hurt a bit if she knew how many robbers there were and where they happened to be standing.

She had counted that there were six robbers in total, but that was all the detail Ash had time to notice before a new player came onto the scene: Deadpool. She didn't know how he had managed it, but he strolled casually through the door and stood for a moment, observing the situation calmly as the robbers shouted at him. Suddenly, he sprang into action.

Through the cameras and their attached microphones, Ash watched and listened to Deadpool bantering and throwing out put-downs while he steadily took down the robbers. She was both horrified and fascinated to see that, no matter how times he was injured in the process, the red-clad mercenary simply continued to fight his way through the group. The only reaction he gave to an injury was when he could make some kind of amusing comment about it.

From Ash's reckoning, it had been less than three minutes from the time Deadpool entered the bank to the point when six 'un-alived' bank robbers lay on the floor of the building in various positions. None of the hostages had been injured - though admittedly, most of them seemed fairly horrified by his methods of freeing them.

When everything was still and the only sound was the sobbing gasps of one young mother clutching her son, Deadpool dusted off his hands and began making his way out of the bank. He did stop to pull a wallet from the back pocket of one robber's pants. Flipping it open, he triumphantly fished out a $50 bill before tossing the wallet back onto the motionless body of the robber.

"Score!" he cheered, smoothing the bill between his gloved hands before glancing around the room. "There you go, folks! Never bring your wallet when you're going to commit a crime." He stopped for a moment, looking concerned. "Wait, that's not right. What is… Oh, yeah! Don't commit crimes. There you go."

He started skipping to the door, but was stopped by the still-shaking mother. "Th-Thank you. You saved us all."

In what was a very rare occurrence according to Ash's memory, Deadpool looked deeply uncomfortable. "Don't mention it. Seriously. Also, will you stop crying? Please? I'll give you fifty dollars."

He held the crinkled bill out toward the woman, but she pushed it back toward him. "No. You deserve this money and more. Thank you." She held her son even more tightly and shuddered. "Thank you so much."

"No problem, lady. I'm gonna go buy me some chimichangas!" Deadpool gently patted the woman's son on the head and strolled out of the door.

Ash sat back from the computer screens, flopping back in the chair with satisfaction. Deadpool may not have had the most orthodox of methods, but no one could deny their efficacy. Unfortunately, the police were less likely to view this with admiration than she was, and no amount of semi-affiliation with the Avengers would make them excuse her involvement in this kind of situation. She had no problem with the police officers of New York and they had none with her, but no amount of goodwill could be enough to cover for this.

And so, Ash decided it was more prudent to retreat from the bank completely - especially since she could already hear sirens - but she didn't go far. Using her suit's climbing tech, she positioned herself on the roof of the building opposite the bank and watched as the police removed the would-be hostages. Several of them were interviewed on the spot while others were being taken to the station to make statements. For her part, Ash was carefully monitoring everyone's emotional states as they exited the bank. This situation had miraculously been concluded with no fatalities, but one never knew if someone had PTSD or some similar problem and would be driven to harm themselves later.

While she was sitting comfortably, watching the police remove the last of the witnesses, Ash heard a rather loud _thump!_ from behind her on the roof. She turned slightly to cast a curious glance over her shoulder and found a young man wearing a blue and red suit straightening up after what seemed to have been a pretty rough landing. _Ugh,_ she thought, disgust filling even her thoughts, _Spider-Man._

In the nearly full year since Ash had moved to New York, she had yet to run into the web-slinging hero. _It had to happen sooner or later,_ she acknowledged glumly, _but I was really pulling for 'later'._ Regardless of her feelings about the guy, Ash was still somewhat concerned to see that he looked close to frantic as he rushed over to the side of the roof and peered over at the bank, entire posture tensed as though he was ready to spring out and web himself over to the building.

He stayed like that for nearly a minute, comically reminding Ash of a bloodhound that had picked up a scent. Eventually, though, he frowned and eased back from the ledge where Ash was sitting, only them seeming to notice her.

"Uh, hey," he greeted awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Have you- Have you heard anything about this bank being robbed? Like, not more than a couple of minutes ago?"

"Well, that would be an incredible coincidence," Ash said blandly, "considering that it was robbed just an hour or so ago. If that incident is the one you're talking about, it's already been taken care of."

"Wait, what?' he asked, seeming somewhat offended. "By who? This is my territory, so it wouldn't have been another hero unless it was you. And we all know it wasn't the cops," Spider-Man snorted. "With their response times, they probably won't get here for another half hour."

"As a point of interest, the police actually beat you here. By quite a bit, too. In fact, they've already been here and left again. And I'm not the one who took care of things, though I was ready to. Deadpool was the one who stopped them."

"Deadpool? Oh, no," Spider-Man groaned as he collapsed onto the ledge next to Ash and buried his face in his arms. "How many people are dead?"

"Six, but they were the robbers."

"Oh." Spider-Man considered this briefly. "I wish he hadn't killed them, but that isn't bad for Deadpool. Not the worst he's ever done, I suppose."

"True," Ash agreed simply.

They sat watching the now empty and shut down bank in a shockingly comfortable silence. Ash could feel the hero watching her subtly, but wasn't motivated enough to get up and leave her spot, so she simply waited for him to say whatever he was thinking so hard about.

"You're Confidante, right?" he asked eventually. She nodded her assent, but didn't feel any need to elaborate. Apparently, Spider-Man felt the need to fill the silence anyway. "I sometimes… share information - with the Avengers. They've mentioned you a few times, told me to look out for you. But not protect you, necessarily. Jarvis says you're really independent-"

"Yeah, great, thanks. Just- If they decided for some reason that you need to know my real name or anything, can you please keep it to yourself? I've kind of got a secret identity-type thing going on here." Ash _hated_ asking for favors, especially from someone she already didn't care for, but one careless word from Spider-Man - especially if he was in Deadpool's presence at the time - could effectively give away everything she was trying to keep secret. She didn't like it, but to keep Confidante's identity secret, Ash had to swallow her pride and hope Spider-Man would agree to do this for her.

"Oh, sure! They didn't tell me anything like that, but I wouldn't say anything anyway. I know what it's like, trying to keep your real life separate from all of this."

The depression in the young hero's voice made Ash pity him, but before she could offer comfort, another _thump!_ sounded from the rooftop behind them. Spider-Man turned immediately, but Ash knew better than to look. If she was right about the cause of the sound, she would know soon enough.

"Well, if it isn't my two favorite superheroes!" Deadpool crowed victoriously, standing behind them with an enormous bag - probably filled with chimichangas - that had once been white, but now was stained with grease to the point of being completely transparent. Idly, Ash wondered how he had managed not to drop it while hitting the roof so forcefully, but didn't bother asking.

Deadpool continued despite their less-than warm welcome. "Makes me feel all warm and tingly riiiiiight…" His pointer finger hovered for a moment in the vicinity of his heart before he dropped it down to point at the crotch of his suit. "Here."

Spider-Man rolled his eyes, muttering some less-than complimentary things about Deadpool under his breath while Ash made a show of frowning. "I'm sorry, there must be some kind of misunderstanding. I don't know you."

Deadpool looked at her skeptically. "Are you seriously gonna play it this way? It takes more than a quick costume change to fool the Regeneratin' Degenerate!" Ash didn't respond to this, choosing to stare at the completely deserted bank. Deadpool continued on in his most casual tone despite her lack of interest. "By the way, I un-alived your pal Samuel."

"You what?!" she snapped.

"Calm down, he's alive and well. Has a solid job now and takes night classes, trying to become some kind of a sound equipment guy. Point is," Deadpool took a gigantic mouthful of chimichanga and spoke through it, spraying bits of food and drops of spittle across the rooftop, "you do know me."

Ash glared over at him briefly, but turned back almost immediately. Deadpool had pulled his mask up almost over his nose to eat, and the sight of his exposed skin was starting the injection's cycle all over again. _I really don't want to spend another month in Avengers Tower. Not to mention that I would probably die this time._ Besides, she couldn't argue Deadpool's point since she actually had been tricked by his simple ruse. _Sounds like a good time to get going._

Keeping an eye on him in her peripheral vision, Ash watched as Deadpool shrugged. "I figured you would be happy to see me. We have some unfinished business."

Deciding to give up on any denial that she knew Deadpool, Ash crossed her arms. "And that business would be-?"

"I'm pretty sure I remember you saying something about wanting to show me your face…" At least, that's what she thought he said. The mercenary appeared to have shoved most of another chimichanga in his mouth before speaking, so his words were somewhat garbled.

Ash snorted. "And I distinctly remember that I never said that. In fact, I'm pretty sure I remember saying that it'll never happen."

"Never say never!" he chided, wagging a grease-stained finger at her.

"Never never never never never never never," she responded childishly.

Deadpool let out a startled bark of laughter. "And there's that attitude again. Final proof you're the same person. On an unrelated note, that mask looks stuffy. When are you going to take it off?"

Fighting a laugh at his persistence, Ash leaned to the side to look at and appeal to Spider-Man. Much as she didn't like the arachnidic hero - though that was beginning to change - she knew that he held an oddly large influence over Deadpool. "Any chance you could help me out with this?" she asked, nodding to indicate the mercenary.

Spider-Man snorted. "Are you kidding? I can't even get him off my own back!"

Deadpool looked ready to argue. "But in my defense, it's a lovely back...side." He made a crude groping gesture in midair, accompanied by a loud, appreciative grunt. Grinning crazily after all of this, he rewarded himself with another mouthful of chimichanga.

Spider-Man turned back to Ash. "See what I mean?"

"Makes sense," she acknowledged, "though it isn't exactly a shock. His obsession with you is practically legend."

"Hey, I'm not the only one he's obsessed with lately. For the past few months, every time I see him, he asks if I've seen the 'badly-dressed chick with the great ass'."

"Cool it, Baby Boy, damn…" Deadpool said, seeming embarrassed. "You don't have to tell everyone. I can't help that I'm such a romantic."

"I can think of tons of things to call you, Wade, but that definitely isn't one of them," Spider-Man retorted.

Pouting, Deadpool cajoled, "Aww, come on, I'm not that bad. Some even say loveable." This time, both of the sane occupants of the roof snorted. "I'll prove it! Here, have a chimi! Okay, well... There's only one left. But we can shaaaaare!"

Ash stood quickly. "Thanks for the offer, but I need to go."

"Yeah, me too," Spider-Man rushed out, following Ash's lead. "Next time! Maybe..."

As Ash prepared to make her leap from the rooftop - her suit was reinforced, but something in the human body always screamed in panic when one jumped from a multi-story building - she could hear Deadpool quietly say behind her, "Yeah, like I would ever actually give one of them my last chimi. Suckers."

She shook her head. The mercenary had never made sense to her, but perhaps that was a good thing: the day Deadpool made sense would likely be the day she would know she had finally lost her mind.

* * *

"Take a deep breath in… Good. Now let it out. Another deep breath in… Now out."

Feeling like she was in some kind of weird, guided meditation session, Ash followed Nurse Temple's instructions. Ash didn't know the pretty nurse very well, but remembered her from her previous stint in the hospital area of Avengers Tower. It wasn't her favorite experience to dwell on, but the nurse had been nothing less than professional and compassionate, and Ash was glad to see her again. Even if she was brandishing a remarkably cold stethoscope.

The implement of torture in question was slid from under her shirt and rested around Nurse Temple's neck once more. Ash took this as a sign that she was allowed to make noise again. Partially out of curiosity and partially because she needed to fill the dead silence of the room, she said, "So, Nurse Temple, how long have you worked for Tony Stark?"

"Technically, I don't work for him. I just help out here from time to time. I get to see all kinds of weird and interesting injuries here, and Mr. Stark makes the moonlighting very lucrative."

"I'm sure," Ash agreed. "I imagine it's worth it for him to know there's a qualified professional ready to take care of his team if anything happened."

The nurse smiled wryly. "Mr. Stark cares about qualifications as much as any employer, but I think he hired me for my experience. I've worked with more than my fair share of patients who require… 'non-standard' treatment."

"Ooh, like who?" Ash couldn't stop herself from asking the overly-nosy question, but she was always curious about other heroes, as well as their abilities as various injuries.

The other woman's face went carefully blank at the question, however. "I'm sorry, I don't think that would be a good idea. The people who were involved probably wouldn't want me telling their stories without their permission."

"I'm sorry, Nurse Temple. I shouldn't have asked," Ash apologized immediately.

"Nah, don't worry about it," she dismissed. "And just call me 'Claire'. After all, I'm your nurse. If I have to help you use the restroom at any point, you're entitled to use my first name."

Laughingly, Ash said, "That seems like a pretty good system. And you can call me 'Ash', of course. I mean, I think you already do, but- Yeah. You can also tell me to shut up at any time. Sometimes I can ramble."

"I'll keep that in mind, but you'll just have to ramble to yourself for a couple of minutes. I need to go input this- I mean, 'give this information to' Jarvis." She rolled her eyes commiseratingly at Ash. "If you ever want to get an instant, twenty-minute lecture from Mr. Stark, refer to Jarvis as anything less than a complete person."

Ash chuckled in appreciation of the warning as the nurse retreated into a small office next to the elevators, but she rapidly grew serious when Claire didn't come back for a long moment. The mood continued to darken as Doctor Banner joined the pretty nurse in the room, where the pair spoke rapidly and quietly, pointing at different places on the computer screen they were looking at.

Eventually, they seemed to come to some kind of a conclusion, because both professionals emerged from the room and approached Ash's bed. She watched, half-amused, as they argued back and forth with their eyes on who had to tell her. As Ash had silently predicted, Doctor Banner was the one to give in first.

Raking hands through his graying hair, Bruce stuttered out, "Ashton, I- I don't really know how to say this-"

"Doctor Banner, please stop," she interrupted, cutting off the flustered doctor. "I already know what you're going to say."

"How could you possibly-"

"Your stomach aches. Your heart is pounding. You feel like your insides are twisting and writhing because you don't want to tell me that my condition is getting worse. You want to know how I know that? Because I can feel it. I can read you as clearly as though your feelings were my own. I can read you, I can read Claire, I can read everyone on this floor and the ones above and below us." She gave a short laugh. "I can read Jarvis. I can read _Jarvis_. He's an intelligence system with no feelings beyond those simulated by electric pulses and I can read him."

Doctor Banner stared at her disbelievingly, but Ash only looked up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry, Jarvis. I didn't mean to offend you."

"You didn't of-"

"Don't bother, Jarvis. I can feel your hurt. I feel it like it's my own." Ash turned to Banner. "So, yes, I know my condition is worsening. I didn't come here for that, Doctor Banner. I came here for a time frame. How much longer do I have before I go completely mad?"

Ash could feel Doctor Banner pushing down his instinctive need to assure her that wouldn't happen. When he finally spoke, it was to say, "There are many factors that go into producing a time estimate like you're asking for. For one, we need to know how much of this increase is from Deadpool. How much time have you spent around him lately?"

Ash shook her head. "Nice try, Doc. I've spent probably a collective twenty minutes with him in the past few months."

"Has he had any physical contact with you at all?"

"Nope. I was careful to stay as far from him as possible. I didn't know if I was going to implode or something," Ash shrugged, hoping to lighten the atmosphere at least a bit.

It didn't work. Still serious, Doctor Banner sighed and rubbed his eyes. "You have to understand, all of this is conjecture. There's no way of giving an exact time or even what will happen, at least, not with any certainty."

"Of course," Ash soothed, feeling the spike of nerves in the man. Deciding it was best to appeal to his scientific nature, she phrased her next question carefully. "And what is your best theory, based on all the information you've gathered about my situation?"

"I would guess that you have six to eight weeks."

Ash fought to keep her face blank. "Six to eight weeks. So, somewhere around two months. That's good to know."

Sounding even more weary than he had so far in their acquaintanceship, Doctor Banner said, "Ashton, you have to talk to someone about this. You've just been given some very intense news and I'm sure you're feeling a lot of emotional turmoil right now. You can't keep it all bottled up or you'll go…"

"I'll go crazy?" Ash finished with a slight smile. "It's okay. In all honesty, I've been having trouble feeling emotions that aren't my own for a while. At the moment, I feel a twinge of nerves, your guilt - which there's no need for, by the way, you've done your best with me - and Nurse Claire's worry that we're going to catch her eavesdropping. I should be worried. I should be terrified, actually, and desolate, and furious, and all of those intense emotions, but I'm not. That, if nothing else, tells me how far gone I am."

Doctor Banner was unconvinced, Jarvis was skeptical, and Claire was pitying. Ash, on the other hand, mostly felt an increased need to go out and do some good before her time ran out once and for all.

"Well, thank you both for your time," Ash said politely, raising her voice to add, "You too, Claire!" In a more normal volume, she continued, "I had better get going if I want to start my rounds on time, so I'll just change and head out."

"Out- Where exactly are you intending to go?" Doctor Banner sputtered. "What could possibly be important enough to risk your health?"

"Rounds," Ash replied simply. Before the soft-spoken doctor could get too stressed and start flashing any green, she tacked on, "From what you've said - and not said - I don't have much health to risk. If I'm going to go crazy sooner rather than later, I'm going to help as many people as possible on my way out. I need to go on rounds."

Despite the protests coming at her from all directions, as well as the sincere feelings of worry and apprehension, Ash made her way over to the shelf holding her belongings, grabbed her shoes, and slipped them on before taking the elevator to the room she had been staying in. She had moved back home a while ago, but Tony insisted that she keep her room at Avengers Tower, just in case. Since he refused to allow her to keep the suit anywhere else, Ash didn't mind. It made for convenient storage and another way to stave off suspicions about her identity if she was ever followed home from rounds.

Fortunately, it was a quiet night, and no one gave Ash any reason to feel less stable than usual. There were no run-ins with any suspicious superheroes, anti-heroes, or villains, and she was back at Avengers Tower a little before midnight, even earlier than her average ending time. After returning the suit to the room set aside for her, Ash changed back into civilian clothes, flicked off the lights, and prepared to go back to her own apartment to get a little sleep.

As she approached the elevators once more, Ash sensed the presence of another person. Another person who was obviously waiting to talk to her. Though she was unable to get a read on who the would-be conversationalist was, Ash stifled a groan. She was tired for once, and the thought of sitting through another delay was unpleasant.

When she could finally see the one waiting for her, Ash found it was a pleasant-looking, though nondescript, man. He was average height, average build, and his brown hair was combed into a neat style. He wore a suit, not extravagant like Tony's outfits, but nice enough not to look shabby. His eyes were kind but firm, and he radiated a quiet determination and inoffensive interest. His emotions reflected all of this, and Ash knew immediately that she had nothing to fear from the stranger.

"Hello, Miss Akerstrom," the man said in his medium-range voice, offering a firm - but not overly-so - handshake. "My name is Phil Coulson. I'm with SHIELD… or at least, I _was_ until the recent breaches in security. Now I help lead several teams around this place, but there's no official title."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Coulson," Ash responded, automatically polite. "It seems you already know who I am, so I'm left to wonder why you know so much about me and what this conversation is about."

"Isn't it right that I should introduce myself to one of the Tower's newest residents?" he countered with a slight smile.

"I suppose not, but that isn't what you're feeling right now, not polite interest or the need to be well-mannered toward a new person. No, you…" Ash trailed off, needing to concentrate more than usual to read the man. "You want to offer something, something that is both a favor from me and a favor from you. Mr. Coulson, I have to admit that I'm intrigued."

"Agent Coulson, please. I used to be one of the people in charge of SHIELD and I find that going back to 'Mr.' is more difficult than I had thought." Ash nodded her agreement and the man took a breath, obviously gearing up to make his requests. "I would like you to move to Avengers Tower permanently."

Ash could only blink at him for a moment. "Is this the favor to me or the favor to you? Because I don't need help with my housing situation. I have an apartment."

"Yes, we know," he responded eerily, followed up by rattling off her address. "Everyone knows where your apartment is. It's a security hazard, and that's a large part of the reason we would like you to come here instead."

"Who is 'we'?" Ash asked suspiciously.

"The Avengers, Nick Fury, several authorities from SHIELD, and Jarvis. And it would be a sort of mixed favor. You would receive a place to live - rent free, incidentally - in exchange for you helping us with a slight situation."

Ash watched the man for a moment, studying both his physical and emotional appearance carefully. "What situation do you need my help with?"

In a few short moments, he had briefed her about the situation with SHIELD and HYDRA and the disturbing overlap in membership. "In short, we would ask that you simply keep an eye on the agents around you. If you read anything suspicious from them, let one of us know and we'll handle it. If you don't find anything, no big deal. You would still have a secure place to live and operate your Confidante operation out of, which leads me to my favor to you: I still run a few teams who go help protect the public. Doctor Banner told me that you want to help with that. I wanted to extend you the offer of joining us on whatever situation arises next."

After thinking it over for a long moment, Ash slowly shook her head. "I- I mean, thank you for the chance to go with you guys, but I think I can do more good by continuing to do my rounds. Stay out in the trenches, so to speak."

Agent Coulson nodded. "I understand. If you change your mind, let me know."

"Will do." Ash stood in awkward silence, trying to avoid making eye contact with the man. "So, any idea how soon I should move my things over to the Tower?"

"Immediately," he said easily. "There's a car waiting outside and we've already been in contact with your landlord. By tomorrow morning, there will be no record of you ever having lived there."

"Good, good," Ash answered, finding it difficult to breathe with so much tension in the air. "I'll see you around, then."

After the car made its way to her apartment - followed shortly by a large moving van - Ash couldn't help but concentrate on her feelings as she packed. Specifically, she thought of the way her chest ached at the idea of leaving her apartment behind. She told herself it was because she hated the idea of leaving an apartment located in such a great neighborhood, one so close to the deli she liked, one she had spent so much time turning into a home. But as they pulled away from that very building, Ash quietly admitted to herself that the true reason was that her final link to Deadpool had been broken.


	9. Masked Heroes of New York City

_I might be slowly losing my sanity and slipping into a lifetime of isolation to avoid being tortured into insanity by the excruciating feelings of everyone around me, but you can't deny that the perks are something to be envied._ Ash made her way down the center of a deserted street, fearlessly walking in plain sight of anyone who came along. Fortunately, she could sense any potential threats coming from a minimum distance of two blocks away. Most people avoided her completely, due in part to the mask, but in truth, Ash didn't fear any of the people who could possibly wish her harm. Her powers had grown considerably and she could see a person's deepest weaknesses like glowing cracks in their soul. Strangely enough, those around her seemed able to sense this somehow. She read feelings of vulnerability increasing within a twenty-foot radius of her actual person, though of course she could sense much farther than that.

Yes, her range had increased as well, and by quite a large margin. More importantly, her abilities filled the entirety of the range, just as potent on the edges as they were within feet of Ash's body. As she moved along in the Confidante suit, she scanned the buildings on both sides of the street with her powers, searching for feelings indicating domestic violence or riffling through minds as she looked for plots to cause mischief of any kind. She didn't often find any, but when she did, justice was meted out swiftly and as fairly as possible according to the depth of their feelings and how cruel the people in question had intended to be.

Ash's head swiveled needlessly to the side, her powers having sensed a robbery happening in a strip mall exactly one block to her left. Cutting through a dark alleyway, Ash moved quickly and confidently toward the action, casually stopping a drug deal by inflicting revulsion and self-loathing on both parties. By the time they had both silently agreed to walk away from the transaction, she had already passed from their view.

She walked to the doorway of the electronics store the group was in, but didn't bother walking inside. Instead, she stood at the door and waited for them to notice her, watching as the trio of two men and one woman seized everything they could carry and casually destroyed the rest.

It didn't take long to attract their attention, and feelings of lust and possessiveness spiked from one male as he chuckled. "Hey, look at that. A nice piece of ass, all wrapped up and waiting for us."

Ash didn't worry about forming an answer. Instead, she used her abilities to reach into the trio's emotional state and increased the slight shadows of guilt and depression until they were all lying on the floor. One was sobbing, one was clutching at her chest, and the last was curled into the fetal position, staring blankly at the wall. When she was sure none of them would do anything other than turn themselves in to the police, she turned silently on her booted heel and attempted to leave the building, but a tall figure dressed in a deep red costume darted through the door before she could leave, pushing her back inside.

As he passed her, the unknown person had slapped a metal band on her wrist and pressed a button. The inside of the band glowed slightly and Ash's hand obediently flew backward, attaching to the metal of the doorframe. As she tugged at what she realized must be some kind of high-powered magnet - also concerned that it couldn't be good for all of the technology packed into her suit - the silhouetted figure began neutralizing the robbing group.

He didn't kill them, of course. As if the magnetized containment method hadn't been clue enough, Ash could read from his emotions and mental state that the man was fighting for the side of good, at least in his own mind. She was inclined to agree with his self-assessment as he began to gently restrain the group, handling them carefully after muttering, "What the hell?" as he observed their despondent state.

In the meantime, Ash was diligently working on her wrist. Pressing the same button the man had to activate it didn't work to free herself, so she had taken to attempting to manually pry up the magnet. It wasn't working so far, but Ash's nature and training refused to let her stand docilely by and wait for the man to finish attending to the criminals and turn his attention to her. Mind whirring through the contents of her suit, Ash could think of nothing that might help, but remembered a thick plastic card that Agent Coulson had given her when she moved into Avengers Tower. He had told her something about it being identification she could present if she was ever questioned by the police. It supposedly would vouch for her work with the Avengers and the much-dismantled SHIELD, but Ash had chosen to continue avoiding police attention as much as possible.

Regardless, Ash still worked on edging the card under the point where the magnetic cuff was latched onto the frame of the door. When she had succeeded, the strong pull seemed to slacken a bit. With as solid a grip as possible, Ash held onto the cuff until she could brace her feet on the side of the door. Activating the thrusters, she did her best to push herself away, pulling with all her might on the cuff. Thankfully, it popped off the door and she held her wrist carefully to avoid touching it to any other surface. Momentarily thinking over her options, Ash decided her best chance was to try to return to the Tower.

She swiveled in place and tried to leave, but the man was there again. He grabbed her upper arms and - despite the twisting and struggling Ash threw his way in an attempt to break free - clapped another band on her opposite wrist. With a simple push, her arms came together and locked there, trapping her just as surely as any traditional pair of cuffs would have done. With a sudden flash of sympathy for all the skips she had cuffed before, Ash struggled against the bonds as the man began to speak.

"This city has more people in masks than any place has a right to," he started, moving around her. He moved silently, fluidly graceful in his dark suit until his booted foot made contact with the card that had fallen when Ash removed her wrist from the wall. Smoothly, the man bent to retrieve the small plastic rectangle, straightening up and turning toward her as he ran his thumb over its surface. "Are you with SHIELD?"

Ash forced her breathing to slow as she shrugged carelessly. "There isn't much of a SHIELD to be with anymore," she said blandly, unsure of what the right answer was. There were fairly good odds the wrong response could get her killed.

"Very true. What are you doing out here, though? Even Coulson's more advanced agents don't have the training to be on the streets without backup. You're going to get hurt if you're not-" He cut off abruptly and Ash stopped trying to pry her wrists apart. "Wait, it's you!"

"It's me," Ash agreed, once again unsure of the correct answer. However, he seemed to know Agent Coulson and about SHIELD, so she hoped that being a part of the organization - no matter how unofficial a part - would work in her favor.

"I'm glad to see you healed up all right from your injuries."

"Injuries?" she repeated, possibly even more confused than before. "I don't-"

"Oh, sorry," he said with a grin. "I'm the one who found you - what, nearly a year ago? You had been beaten pretty badly. I go by the name Daredevil."

Though she berated herself, Ash still had a bit of difficulty collecting her thoughts. The grin and the sudden non-threatening attitude had brought sudden, sharp attention to the fact that Daredevil was a young man, a fairly attractive young man. "Well, thanks for that, then. I don't really remember much of the attack and what happened immediately afterward, but I do remember Tony mentioning that you're the one who found me."

"Tony," he repeated. "I try not to pry, but is there any chance you could explain to me how a girl who was - no offense - a bit of a nobody a year ago is now on first-name basis with a billionaire who happens to be one of the Avengers?"

"It's a long story, but I guess you deserve an explanation more than anyone." Ash gave as quick and painless an explanation as she could, glossing over a lot of what had happened.

When she had finished, the superhero gave a low whistle. "So, Confidante, huh? I have heard about you and wondered where you had popped up from. There are quite a few superheroes around lately, though, so I didn't ask too many questions."

"Understandable," Ash agreed, waiting a long moment before asking, "Is there any chance you would uncuff me? I swear, I'm not going out of my way to beat people up."

"Oh, of course!" Daredevil said right away. He took one of her wrists in each hand, guiding her through a complicated twisting pull motion that ended with her hands being released, both from the cuffs and from each other. As he tucked the metal bands into a pocket on his suit, the hero added, "You should really think about getting yourself a pair of these. They are invaluable when it comes to restraining people, especially if they're people who have abilities."

"Thanks for the advice, but I'll pass. I'm probably not going to be in this line of work for too much longer anyway."

"Oh? Why's that?"

Ash looked up at what little she could see of the man's masked face, still able to read the polite curiosity and slight concern in his emotions. "Well, the short version is that my abilities are getting stronger. They'll be out of my control soon and I'll have to make some changes." This explanation was putting it mildly, but saying anything more seemed too much like asking for pity.

Fortunately, Daredevil was too tactful to ask anything else and simply nodded. "Before I forget, here's your card back. I have a feeling you'll need that in case you get involved with any police in the near future and Coulson gets cranky if he has to re-issue an ID."

"That sounds about right," Ash laughed, accepting the card he handed her. "Thanks for saving me the lecture."

The hero shuddered dramatically. "Having been on the receiving end of a few of those, I can truly say I'm glad to spare someone else the experience." Ash slid the card into a thin pocket on the thigh of her suit in the silence before Daredevil asked, "How do you like working with SHIELD?"

"Well, if you promise not to cuff me again, I don't mind admitting that I really only work with them in name. Like I said earlier, there isn't much left of SHIELD and what little there is focuses mostly on rebuilding instead of going on missions."

Daredevil sighed, rotating his neck and nodding commiseratingly. "That's the problem with the large-scale, government-funded kind of superhero agency: There's too much that can go wrong. I know Coulson pretty well and I've met Fury a few times, and while I'll gladly admit that they seem morally stable, they don't hold the reins, a board does. If that board decides it wants to do something horrible, there isn't much anyone can do to stop them. It's an unequal distribution of power."

"I'll agree to that," Ash said after a moment of thought. "Any large organization has the possibility of being hijacked by the wrong people, but they really do try. I swear, Agent Coulson practically had a tear in his eye when he was telling me how much of SHIELD has been dismantled!"

"That, I believe one-hundred percent!" Daredevil laughed along with her. "In all seriousness, though, some of Coulson's smaller groups have done some incredible work and I know communities all over the world are feeling their absence. I hope they'll be able to return sometime soon."

Ash knew precious little about the internal goings-on of SHIELD, but wracked her brains regardless. "Well, Coulson did offer to let me go along on a mission or two and my expiration date isn't that far away. It's a good sign that they'll be starting up activity shortly."

"I'm glad. I prefer to work by myself, but like I said, they can work all around the world."

Ash took a deep breath, knowing she was prying but unable to help herself. "Why do you work by yourself all the time? Surely it must be more dangerous."

"It is, but I... prefer it, in the least masochistic way that can be meant. I'm not responsible for anyone else, I don't have to worry about what they want to do or if they think we should do something else. Little considerations like that have a way of making a huge impact in a fight. Plus, I don't get a paycheck, or any letter of thanks from some bureaucrat, but there's just nothing like the look - the gratitude - from someone who thought there was no help, but got rescued anyway."

Heart warmed by the deep and thoughtful attitude toward his job, Ash opened her mouth to thank him, but was interrupted.

"-But the _best_ gratitude comes in form of attention to your pants area. Right, Mattie-pooh?" Deadpool turned enough to catch sight of Ash. "Ooh, I'd love to collect on your gratitude sometime, babe." He winked one white eye in her direction as Daredevil - AKA Matt, though she'd try to forget the personal information - let out a dramatic groan.

"Ugh, and now they'll never get the smell out of this place." He delicately sniffed the air before giving an exaggerated gag. "Essence of Deadpool, how horrible."

"Yeah… Well…" Deadpool drew out, obviously searching for something to say. "You're blind, so… Take that."

Ash waited for Daredevil to scoff at this or otherwise deny it, but the man remained silent. Ash studied him intently, noting for the first time how intensely the lenses of his mask were tinted. She found it difficult to believe, but in her admittedly short experience with the world of supers, stranger things had happened. She cleared her throat, trying to make things easier for the obviously-uncomfortable Daredevil. "Uh, moving past that, what are we going to do about the wannabe robbers?"

"I'll take them to the nearest police station." Ash glanced over at Daredevil and he grinned, holding up a card similar to the one Ash had. "Coulson gave me one, too. Being legitimate in the eyes of the law makes some things easier. Oh- I might need some help getting them to the station, though..."

Deadpool scoffed and Ash frowned at Daredevil, who beckoned her over. Fully knowing that they would still be in range of Deadpool's hearing anywhere in the store, Ash still followed and stood obligingly in the corner furthest from the door. The supposedly-blind superhero muttered, "Do you want to come to the police station with me? I can escort you back to the Tower afterward."

"Um.. No, thanks. Why?"

Daredevil shifted uncomfortably. "Well, the word on the street is that you need to avoid him and he's not letting you. They say he's really bad for you to be around." He paused briefly, giving a short laugh. "Not that Deadpool is _good_ for anyone to be around, but I've heard that he actually has an effect on you, that there could be some pretty serious repercussions."

"Repercussions?" she muttered back to him, unable to keep the smile from her face at the excessively grand word.

"You know what I mean," he threw back, giving her a grin that made her melt a little bit.

Collecting herself, Ash shook her head. "Thanks for the offer, but I think I've got this."

"Really?" Daredevil asked skeptically, glancing back at where Deadpool was amusing himself.

In a moment of perfect timing, Deadpool looked up from where he had been shallowly stabbing his arm with shards of glass that increased in size as they climbed toward his bicep. "Look, I'm a porcupine! Except my spikes are on my arm and not my butt! Though I have been told that my ass is a spectacular weapon…" He trailed off, frowning suddenly. "By people, that's who. ...Yeah, well, no one says anything to you, so how would you know? ...You know what? How about you just shut up, Madcap? You were no treat to look at when you did have a body, you ugly-ass _Mask_ knockoff. ...Oh yeah?! Well _your_ mother's nose-"

Daredevil turned back to Ash, a look of ' _I told you so'_ palpable even with so much of his face covered. She shrugged, doing her best to follow his lead and ignore the crazed mutterings of the super with the glass in his arm. "I know it sounds strange, but I've been thinking about this for a while and it seems like something that needs to happen."

After a few more assurances, Daredevil agreed and began gathering the perpetrators. Since they would be too difficult to move by himself, the hero called a policeman he knew and arranged for the three to be quietly picked up and transported by squad car. With that taken care of, Ash approached Deadpool, who glanced up at her expectantly.

"So, is this the part where you tell me that you need to stay and back up the Sightless Samurai, but it would be better for everyone if I just went ahead and left?"

Disconcerted by the honesty and accepting expectation in the normally-bouncy super's voice, Ash took a moment to figure out how to answer. "...No, actually. I wanted- That is, I was going to ask if you wanted to come along as I do the rest of my rounds? I don't have a lot left, but it would give us some time to talk."

Deadpool studied her for a long beat, white eyes narrowed at her, before shrugging carelessly. "Sounds good to me. Ready to go, milady?" He swept a shockingly impressive-looking bow and offered her his arm. While Ash had decided to speak to the man who had become her weakness - in more ways than one - she didn't think touching him was a wise choice. As tactfully as possible, she patted the extended arm gently and left the building, giving a short wave to Daredevil as she did so. She pretended not to see it when Deadpool flipped the other man off.

They walked in silence for quite a while, giving Ash time to think and re-think her plan. This idea had been brewing for weeks. As she had dealt slowly with the diagnosis Doctor Banner had reluctantly delivered, Ash realized that she had a lot of loose ends to take care of before it was too late. Her condition wasn't improving and probably never would. The one thing Ash didn't want to leave behind was regret.

One of the biggest regrets of her life so far was the way things had gone with Deadpool. Time and time again, she had laid awake, thinking over the way things had gone and how she wished she could change them. She had even narrowed down at which major points she could have said or done something to improve the situation. Those were the moments that disappointment and despair had been so thick in the air that she had nearly choked. Now, there was only time for one course of action: to tell Deadpool face-to-face who she was and what had happened.

She didn't know how the unpredictable super would take the news or if he even remembered who she was. After all, everything had happened so long ago, almost a full year. Who knew what that translated to in Deadpool time? Ash swallowed semi-convulsively, stomach twisting with the idea that someone she considered a friend could have only a fleeting idea who she was. Abruptly, she wished she had more time. Surely another week or two wouldn't make a real difference in the grand scheme of things, and maybe she could come up with some way of apologizing so that he would remember, so that he would believe her. Forgiveness was out of the question, but maybe…

Ash clenched fists at her sides. She really didn't have much time, either on that particular night or in the big picture. Deadpool had still been seeking out overseas contracts and was often out of New York for months at a time. If she lost her nerve tonight, Ash could very well lose her chance for good. It would have to be now. She wouldn't get another chance.

Clearing her throat, Ash spoke over the constant _tink_ of glass hitting the sidewalk as Deadpool de-spiked his arm. "Deadpool… Why do you do stuff like this?" she gestured at his arm even while internally cursing her own cowardice.

He shrugged. "When you have a healing factor like I do, there's no reason not to, right?"

"But it still hurts when you get injured, doesn't it."

"Yeah, for the most part."

"Then why? Surely there must be a reason." His white eyes flashed with a certain amount of relish and Ash was quick to interrupt with, "And if you make an _Airplane_ joke right now, I swear I will shoot you in the balls."

"Fine. And I do it because it's funny. I was a porcupine!" He held up his bleeding arm proudly. "That's funny! You get the joke, right?"

"Probably," Ash said, not really sure about it, but one-hundred percent sure that she didn't want to sit through a twenty-minute long explanation about why porcupines are funny.

"Can I-? Never mind."

Ash eyed Deadpool as they continued to walk in silence. Deadpool rarely stopped himself from talking, so she was instantly curious about what he had been about to ask. "What were you going to say?"

"Nothing important," he said casually.

"Don't lie to me. You have that look on your face."

"What are you talking about? I don't get a look." Deadpool carefully avoided her gaze. "And anyway, being crazy is my thing. Stop trying to steal my gig."

Ash ignored him. "I'm talking about that look you get when you're about to say something personal and deep, but you think no one would care, so you swallow it back down and say something flippant instead. That look."

"Oh, that look. I don't have a look like that."

"Deadpool…"

"Besides, why would you care? You don't know me well enough to recognize that look. Even if I did have that kind of a look. Which I don't. I'm a mercenary."

Ash snorted. "Why would that matter at all? Nice try. Just say what you were going to. Please?"

"Fine." Despite his agreement, they walked in silence for long enough that Ash began to question if he was going to speak at all. "Why did you decide to see me? I thought you hated my guts. Is this some kind of a trap?"

"Not a trap," Ash assured.

"Oh, so that's what this is. Don't worry, babe. I know what's going on." Deadpool sighed dramatically, trailing a hand slowly down his jawline and neck, ending with a flutter of fingertips across his chest. "Just couldn't resist this body any longer, huh?" Ash stared at him, speechless as he continued preening. "Don't be embarrassed; it happens all of the time. I'm just surprised it took you this long."

"You're ridiculous."

"And you're finally here. Welcome! I thought you were going to stay buried in your head all night. I finally get to talk to you and I want the chance to actually talk, not just walk next to you and not say anything. I do that all the time anyway."

Ash could see his eyebrows waggling under the mask and couldn't help but laugh. Predictably, the remaining traces of the injection chose that particular moment to make their presence known, sending a sharp bolt of pain through her head. Try as she might, Ash couldn't quite keep herself from wincing at the unpleasant sensation.

"Wait a minute," Deadpool said, eyeing her face. "Are you psychic?"

"Am I-?" It was such a conversational leap that Ash could only blink up at him, but quickly regained her mental balance. "Hang on. Come with me."

Without checking to see if he was following, Ash turned and made her way down a nearby alley. It was a smaller area, but it would do to have a short, private conversation, and that's all she needed it for.

"So, I ask again: Are you psychic?" the large, red-clad man asked suspiciously.

"I wouldn't exactly call it psychic, but that's not really the point-" she hedged with a shrug, but Deadpool was having none of it.

"No matter what you would call it, you get in people's heads. That can't happen."

"Is that what you're worried about?" Ash asked, allowing him to change the subject while she gathered the nerve to tell him why she was really there. "I'm not going to go digging through your mind."

"Not exactly why I'm concerned. Psychic people… they have a bad time around me. Don't pretend you don't wince when you look at me. I've seen it." He sighed. "Much as I've enjoyed following you around and otherwise harassing you, it's probably best if we avoid each other from now on."

Ash could only watch him silently, throat growing tight as Deadpool laughed self-deprecatingly. "I know, I know: like you were dying to be best friends or something. Guess I should really say that I'll start avoiding you as much as you've tried to avoid me all along."

Closing her eyes, Ash tried to convince herself that they were burning because of the pollution in the air rather than what Deadpool was saying. _He doesn't even know the whole story and he's still thinking more clearly than I am._

When she could focus again, he seemed to have started rambling. "You couldn't be my best friend anyway. I already have one. Or at least, I _had_ one."

"Had?" Ash croaked. She cleared her throat, trying to sound more like she was concerned and less like she had just been punched in the gut. "Did something happen to Spider-Man?"

"No," Deadpool said, relief obvious in his voice. "I mean, I love Spidey and all, but there was this girl… She was a bounty hunter named Ashton."

Ash's chest felt like it was going to cave in, so she opted to nod instead of speak. Deadpool went on, oblivious to the metal bands clamped around her ribcage. "She was the best. She never made demands and didn't get angry when I gave her a hard time. She made me laugh harder than anyone I've ever met and she- she made me feel normal…" He trailed off and gave a heavy sigh. "But she stopped talking to me. Wants nothing to do with me. Pretty sure she hates me now, actually."

Biting back the strangled sound fighting to escape her, Ash nodded again and Deadpool shot her a grin through his mask. "So anyway, yeah. The title of Deadpool's Official Best Friend is taken, whether she hates me or not. But none of this really matters to you." He saluted her. "See ya never, kid."

"I'm going to miss you, dude," she rasped out. Seeing Deadpool in the streets had been painful, but they had always had a connection, strained as it had been at times. Now, that would be gone, once and for all. Ash felt a sudden lash of pain. Somewhere along the line, she had started to care for the oddball mercenary.

"Tell you what I'll miss…" Deadpool hummed, standing back and raking her up and down with his gaze. "If you ever feel eyes on you - hell, any body parts, really - you'll know it's your old pal Deadpool."

Ash shook her head, giving him a watery smile as he backed toward the edge of the building. "Still such a Captain Jack Harkness," she muttered to herself.

Deadpool stopped, back going stiff as his eyes widened. "Hey, that's just what- Wait, did you- Did you just-? Ash?!"

Figuring that standing there nodding was dumb, Ash hesitantly released her mask and stood waiting - avoiding eye contact - afraid of the many directions in which this could go. She caught movement in her peripheral vision as the mercenary sprung at her, pulling her into the tightest hug she had ever received. Closing her eyes against the backlash of shocks she was getting from the injection's activation, Ash hugged him back firmly. Even with the pain, it was the best she had felt in a long time.

"I want to ask how this is possible," he murmured eventually, "but I can't bring myself to care. I'm just glad it's actually happening."

"Deadpool, I am so sorry," she whispered, finally having enough courage to do so. For the second time that night, she explained her powers and their downfalls, her life over the past year and what it would soon turn into.

Deadpool was suitably horrified. "Why are you standing here talking to me, then? I'm the one person you should be avoiding! Not that I've made that easy for you… Fuck, you were just trying to keep yourself sane and I was following you around like a poisonous leech-"

"Stop!" Ash ordered. "The only one to blame here is the one who gave me the injection. You and I were just the means they used to do evil. I've been looking for them, but they seem to have retreated underground."

"Yeah, six feet underground," Deadpool snorted. "I un-alived them as soon as I found a way to track them down. They're long gone. Of course, if I had known they had given you something, I would have made them figure out an antidote before they bit the big one."

Sensing another impending downward spiral, Ash shook her head. "No, there's no promise it would have done anything good. For all we know, they would have just given me a more painful death." She gave him a small half-smile. "You're not well-known for your mercy when someone does something wrong to you."

"Guilty," he readily admitted with a shrug. They both laughed, but Ash couldn't keep a hand from flying to her temples as her head pounded. "Look, we shouldn't be talking. I'll try to find a way to make this right, Ashton, but until then, I'll stay away from you." Deadpool grinned. "But not too far away, because this outfit? Mmmmm…"

Ash rolled her eyes. "You're insane."

"Well, I never!" he reeled back, hand clutching at his chest. "The boxes say you're very rude."

"You know how much I hate to upset the boxes," Ash teased.

"You're wasting time," Deadpool accused her, walking backwards out of the alleyway. "I'll see you around!"

"I thought you were avoiding me?" Ash called after him.

His masked face peeked back around the side of the building. "I said I would see you. I never said that you would see me." He winked and disappeared.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Deadpool kept to his promise. Ash never saw the masked mercenary while she was out doing her rounds, but she commonly came across groups of criminals already taken care of - mostly just unconscious, thankfully. Every time this would happen, Ash would heave a dramatic sigh and turn in a slow circle, flipping off all directions just in case Deadpool was still lingering. Once, she swore she could hear him laughing from a long way off, but there was no way to be sure.

He would often visit her room at the Tower as well. She was never there when he was, of course, but he always left the CD he had made her playing and Ash knew when she walked in to 'Dirty Deeds' or 'True Colors', she should look for a note somewhere in the room. Eventually, curiosity getting the best of her, Ash asked Jarvis how Deadpool knew how to stay just too far away for her to realize he was there. Jarvis admitted with some harassment that Deadpool had come by and asked about Ash's range and how far a safe distance away would be. Ash couldn't help but be touched by the gesture.

All of this was entertaining and served as a great distraction, but Ash could feel her time approaching. Rounds were getting more difficult to complete as she got pulled off track by the greatest emotional need rather than the greatest need overall. On one such night, she stood at a corner far from her usual area, her chest aching. This was nothing special. Her chest always ached recently.

Something felt different about this pressure. It was sharper, the ache matched by one in her head until she wasn't sure where the pain was coming from. Suddenly, the feeling began to soar, growing more intense until her chest seemed to buckle. For one shining, glorious moment, she could read all of NYC, feel every emotion, read every thought, taste every memory. It was wonderful and exhilarating and energizing, but she couldn't shut it off. Her nose began to bleed and she couldn't stop it. Everything was swirling inside her, crowding out everything that made her Ash until she couldn't remember which person was her. She was everyone and no one, everywhere and nowhere at all until suddenly it stopped and her world went dark.


	10. Deadpool Has A Friend

Ash sank down into the lush cushions of the couch and sighed, closing her eyes against the soft light of her favorite corner lamp. The air was lightly scented by the food simmering in the oven. She knew without looking that it was almost ready. It was almost the perfect evening, she reflected, enjoying the sound of the eighth straight play of AC/DC's _Dirty Deeds_. Was it getting old? Yes. Did she wish Deadpool would stop singing? A little. Did she want him to leave? Not a chance.

Quite a bit of time had passed since Ash's powers had come to a critical peak. She had woken up in a bed back at the Tower, feeling as though Colossus was sitting on her chest and had recruited Thor to lay Mjölnir on her head. She struggled to sit up, figuring that a higher perspective would be the best way to search for something to drink, but several voices had urged her to halt her efforts.

" _Whoa, kid, stay down,"_ Tony Stark had warned, releasing her shoulder only when she rested back on the bed.

" _What happened?"_ Ash asked blearily, searching her mind for any memories of how she had gotten there, but came up with nothing.

Jarvis's smooth tone had informed her, " _Your powers grew out of control, Miss Akerstrom. You were nearing death and would likely not be here now if your rescuer had been only a few moments later."_

" _My rescuer?"_ she repeated, blinking stupidly at the crowd in the room, picking out several Avengers, Pepper Potts, an uncomfortable-looking Daredevil, and Agent Coulson. " _Who rescued me?"_

" _Deadpool, of course,"_ Hawkeye said, shrugging as if this should have been obvious. Maybe it should have been, but Ash was still a little out of things. " _He's been keeping an eye on you forever now and happened to be around when you decided to take a pavement nap."_

" _Deadpool helped me? Where is he?"_

" _Right here,"_ Captain Rogers said, gesturing to an open space beside him before doing a double-take and glaring out of the open door. " _Wade, what are you doing?"_

" _I can't be around her! It's dangerous!"_ Deadpool called defensively from the hallway as everyone rolled their eyes.

Thor chuckled. " _Fear not, fellows. I will retrieve the masked man-"_ The tall Avenger made eye contact with Daredevil and corrected, " _The other masked man."_ Moments later, a struggling Deadpool was carried through the door by Thor, who wore an indulgent expression.

" _Mr. Wilson, you know you don't have to avoid Miss Akerstrom any more,"_ Coulson said matter-of-factly.

" _He doesn't?"_ Ash asked at the same time as Deadpool began shouting.

" _You don't_ think _I can be around her! You don't know for sure! It's all based on Stark's calculations, remember? The same guy who tried to make a murder-bot-!"_

" _Excuse me,"_ Tony interrupted, looking affronted. " _I_ succeeded _in making a murder-bot."_

Pepper whacked Tony's arm. " _Not helping, Tony."_

While the billionaire shrugged unconcernedly, Ash tried to get some answers out of someone. " _So you're saying that I'm cured? No more emotions?"_

" _Not exactly,"_ Doctor Banner rushed to say. " _Jarvis and I worked on a sort of solution. We can block most of the injection's effects, but you'll always have some ability to judge the emotions of others."_

" _However, all of the potentially harmful parts of the injection have been neutralized. You have nothing to fear from spending time with Mr. Wilson,"_ Jarvis assured.

" _I don't know if I would say 'nothing',"_ Black Widow murmured and Deadpool glared at her.

" _They say it's safe, Ash, but I understand if you want me to stay away,"_ Deadpool said, cautiously approaching the bed. " _It's a pretty hefty risk to take for such a small payoff. I don't know if I would do it."_

Ash held up a single finger. " _I need to discuss this with Deadpool in a little bit of privacy, but first, can I have something to drink?"_ Doctor Banner hurried off to grab a glass and began filling it with water. While he did so, Ash surveyed the people standing in her room. " _Are all of you here because you were worried about me?"_

" _Of course,"_ Pepper said softly, wearing a slight smile. " _We all heard how bad things were for a while and wanted to make sure you were okay."_

" _So it had nothing to do with being here in case I turned into some murderous monster and went berserk?"_ She cut the question with a small laugh, trying not to sound so completely ungrateful.

Daredevil grinned at her. " _Who says we can't have more than one reason?"_

Ash grinned back and Deadpool scowled. " _Okay, she's got her water. Everyone out!"_

There was grumbling and muttering, but the room had slowly emptied as Ash called her thanks to everyone for their support. When they were finally the only two in the room, Ash had sighed to notice that Deadpool stayed as far from her as he could while still being in the room. " _Deadpool, I want to talk to you, but my throat still hurts. Can you come over here, please?"_

The mercenary inched closer to the bed until Ash glared at him and he finally began taking actual steps. " _I still think this is too much of a risk. You should be staying as far from me as you can."_

" _Like you did when you were close enough to see me fall?"_ Ash asked blandly, laughing at his uncomfortable expression. " _I could read the whole city. I know exactly how far you were from me and how you felt when you realized what was happening."_

" _I wasn't far enough away,"_ he said guiltily. " _Maybe if I'd stayed away, it wouldn't have happened at all."_

" _I knew you were an idiot, but are you a deaf one as well?"_

" _Great, nice to know what you really think about me,"_ Deadpool fired back.

Ash rolled her eyes. " _I said I could read the whole city. That doesn't mean everyone except you. I know exactly how you felt and how panicked you were trying to get to me. Why would I ever want to avoid someone that loyal and devoted?"_ She watched him open his mouth soundlessly under his mask. " _Either you're an idiot or you think I am."_

" _I- I feel like there should be a third option."_

" _Deadpool."_

" _So, you really want to keep me around, then?"_

Staring over at the large man who currently sounded like a lost little kid, Ash nodded decisively. " _Most definitely. You're my friend and I don't have very many of those."_

Deadpool had squealed and rushed over to wrap her in a slightly-smelly hug and hadn't left her side for longer than a day since. Case in point, he walked over and opened the oven in her for the twelfth time, breaking Ash's period of reflection.

"Come on, Ash," he whined. "They've got to be almost done by now!"

"Every time you open the oven, you let out all of the hot air and they take a little longer to cook," Ash told him. "And since you've basically been checking it every thirty seconds, they're taking almost twice as long."

"No one ever died from eating an undercooked chimichanga," he pouted.

Figuring he was probably right - especially since they were almost done anyway - Ash gave in and pulled the tray of Mexican food from the oven. Deadpool pounced on it immediately and Ash kept her distance and scavenged what was left. It was practically a tradition with them now. The other part of the tradition was that Deadpool got to choose a movie. He was trying to keep himself from picking a movie about Spider-Man every night, but sometimes he slipped. Fortunately, tonight he had chosen _John Wick_ and Ash whole-heartedly approved.

While the movie was keying up, Deadpool turned to her, half a chimichanga stuffed into his mouth under the pulled-up mask. "So, what did Stark want earlier?"

Absently brushing bits of food from her lap, Ash said, "Oh, he- uh, he wanted to offer me a job."

"No! Tell me you are not joining Tony Stark's harem!"

"Gross," Ash chuckled. "No, with the lingering powers, he wants me to join his HR department."

"I thought you said no harem?!"

"No harem. _HR_ ," Ash repeated. "As in Human Resources? I'm going to help him hire people who will be good workers and evaluate his current employees for any ties to HYDRA. Decent salary, full benefits, all of that. I think I'm going to take him up on it."

"What? And hang up that sexy suit? Why?" Ash didn't think she had ever heard Deadpool sound so offended.

Ash shrugged. "The suit still works, but I can only feel emotions, not manipulate them. I'm worthless as a superhero and, to be honest, I don't really miss it. I burned a lot of bridges when I stopped skip tracing, though, and it might be nice to have a job where people aren't shooting at me all of the time."

"Hey, being shot at is underrated. Really keeps your reflexes sharp, you know?"

"Deadpool, I'm being serious."

"Well, so am I, but I get it, I guess. We'll keep hanging out though, right?"

"Of course," Ash scoffed. "Like I could find someone else to watch movies and eat junk food with if we stopped being friends."

"There's more to our relationship than just food and movies!" Deadpool protested, waving a food-encrusted hand around to punctuate his point.

Ash stared at the mercenary. "What relationship? You sit on my couch, eat my food, and listen to me complain, then we watch movies."

"That's really all you see me as?"

Ash shrugged and settled into the couch, closing her eyes as she felt her body relax completely. "It's kind of our dynamic, you know? I'm your meal ticket and you're the one I talk to so I don't have to get a cat. It works."

Deadpool made an offended noise and Ash cracked an eye open. "You're still lucky I didn't just shoot you when I found you in my place. Either time." He didn't argue this and the pair simply watched the movie in silence for a bit. "Man, John Wick is such a badass," Ash mused eventually.

"I'm a badass," Deadpool pointed out.

"Yeah, you are an ass," she agreed.

"You're damn right I am!" Pause. "Wait, what?"

Ash laughed. "They say a good sense of self is healthy."

Deadpool choked down his last chimichanga and belched. "Well, I'm all about being healthy."

"Clearly."

"But if anyone ever killed my dog, I would be a total badass and kill a billion dickwads, too."

Idly, Ash wondered how having a dog would work with his mercenary schedule and realized with a start that she had never actually seen his apartment. Ash sat up and stared over at Deadpool. "Do you have a dog?"

To her horror, he looked thoughtful. "You know, I'm not really sure. I've never thought to look. There might be almost anything under all the stuff in my place. IKEA parts and pizza boxes, mostly," he explained.

Ash was still gaping at him, stopping only when she had punched him in the arm. "You don't know if you have a dog?!"

Deadpool laughed loudly. "Calm down, Akerstrom. The closest thing I have to a dog is Spidey." His white eyes hardened as he stopped to think over what he had just said. "Though if anyone ever hurt my Baby Boy, you can bet I'd go on a homicidal revenge streak _waaayyyy_ too bloody and gruesome to ever put on the big screen. I'd start with-"

"Deadpool," Ash interrupted. "Stop for a minute; it's okay. Breathe. No one's trying to hurt Spider-Man. Besides, from everything you've told me, he's pretty good at taking care of himself."

"He is," Deadpool said, the murderous glint in his eyes replaced with one of pride as he glanced over at her. "It goes for you too, you know?"

Ash shook her head. "Spider-Man and I get along okay now, but I was never going to hurt him."

"No, I- I meant that I would definitely go on a crazy revenge streak if anyone ever hurt you. You're important to me, too."

Trying to break the tension, Ash gave a low whistle. "Almost on par with Spider-Man? Wow, I'm really making it big lately. I think that's the nicest compliment you've ever given me!"

Obviously trying to keep the smile from his voice, Deadpool shook his head. "Shut up."

Conversation faded while they watched John Wick murder his way through a bunch of bad guys, but Deadpool broke the silence with a soft, "Hey, Ash?"

"Mm-hmm?" she asked.

"I have something very, very important to tell you."

She groaned. "Why do I feel like this is going to be stupid?"

"Finely-honed instinct?" he suggested.

"More like sad, ridiculous experience."

He pouted. "Well, if you're going to be that way, I just won't tell you."

Ash stared at him for a minute before simply saying, "Okay."

"Wait, what? You're supposed to beg me to tell you, apologize for being so rude, and tell me that nothing I can ever say is unimportant!"

"Okay, no, but now I'm curious. Pretend I did say all of that stuff. What is it?"

"I want you to call me Wade."

"Nope," Ash refused flatly.

"No, I meant-"

"Deadpool, you know the deal. I won't call you Wade until I've seen your face."

"Well, that's-"

"Those are the rules and I'm not going to change them just because you have an obsession with single syllable names-"

"Ash, would you shut up for just a minute?!"

Ash closed her mouth sharply, raising both eyebrows at Deadpool, who took a deep breath. "I want to show you my face."

She just blinked at him silently for a long moment and he sighed. "You can talk now."

Letting out a sharp, surprised little laugh, Ash waved her hand at him. "No, no, I- I just- I don't know what to say. Are you sure?"

"Yes. Is that okay with you?"

Ash let out a breath, thinking over the whole situation very carefully. "Of course it's okay, but I don't want you to feel like I forced you into it."

"No, I just feel like it's time," he explained.

Ash's stomach twisted at the tone his voice held. It wasn't often Deadpool sounded nervous, but at the moment, he sounded like he was ready to bolt from the room. In a quick, sure movement, he lifted the mask from his face, drawing the swath of red and black fabric over his head completely.

Carefully keeping her expression perfectly blank, Ash gazed at him, studying every feature and the way they combined with the scars to create a fully imperfect human being. She ended her perusal by staring into his brown eyes, allowing a slow smile to spread over her face. Relishing every syllable, she said, "Nice to finally meet you, Wade Winston Wilson."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it for this story! I have a few more stories I'm transferring from ff.net, so if you like my writing style, feel free to take a look at my profile and see what else I have going. Thanks for reading and let me know what you thought!


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